Hello! I picked up this Japanese maple last year and it’s just exploded with life this spring! It’s getting so tall with lots of new growth, but I’m not sure how to proceed – should I chop it down? The new growth is so top heavy and I’d really like more lower growth.
I also want to let the trunk thicken up more, so should I just let it keep doing its thing and not touch it?
by switchup
8 Comments
you only chop if you’re satisfied with the thickness of what will be left
If this were mine, I’d keep it happy this year since it’s too late to do anything else. Make sure it doesn’t get too big where it can’t support itself in a pot like that.
Next year make sure the roots are set up for success and put it in a pot where it can fatten up. Forget about doing much of anything to it other than keeping it healthy and keeping the roots on the right track for the next few years. Set up any low branches to take over post-chop. When it’s big enough, then chop and let the lower branch take over. Repeat that. In 5 years you’ll have what you want. Then put it back in a shallow pot. It’ll never thicken in the current setup.
You got a really healthy looking tree there, but it won’t really thicken it’s trunk that much when it is planted in a bonsai pot. To get the trunk to thicken up, it should be in a large grow box or just planted in the ground. That’s when you can get really aggressive growth and do trunk chopping. Once you have the trunk and main branches sorted out you work your way back down to smaller containers.
I always try to think of the bonsai pot as one of the very last steps.
if I were you, I’d leave it alone then next year put it in an even bigger pot and let it run to thicken up that trunk
Looks like a good candidate to air layer where you plan on chopping. Probably should put it back in a nursery pot yo thicken the trunk and to air layer.
Id do heaps of bending while its long and leggy, it helps bend the lower trunk, once you have good trunk movement, refine/reduce the size of the tree gradually building up the nodes in the inner and lower canopy
Chopping and trunk thickening are mutually exclusive.
Thank you all for the comments! I think I’m going to slip pot it into a much larger pot and just let it do its thing for a while