Japanese Maples: I've been pruning again, 1 by largosmom

largosmom wrote:
I bought two new JMs this spring and the recent heat seems to have put them into their summer period of no growth, so I pulled them out of their temporary homes and got the pruners out. They were both a bit "unkempt" looking and needed some small dead twigs removed and crossing branches sorted out. My approach to them both was very different. The two trees are Tsuma Gaki and Oregon Sunset.

Tsuma Gaki is a nice-sized tree and will be encouraged to spread and provide shade for one of my hosta beds. Its profile was rather flat and wide, so after cleaning up the lower trunk some and the lower portions of the branches so that the structure was visible, I staked the overlapping upper branches out so that they help widen the "flat side" and no longer overlap one another. At least, that is the hope if the staking, and in once case weighting of a branch so that it dips a bit more, work as the tree ages. This one will be planted in the hosta bed this fall and seems to be liking the spot. It's in the shade of two dogwood trees, one on our property that has a rather bad problem with borers, and one on the neighbors that so far does not. Which reminds me that I need to treat the neighbor's trees with the bayers' systemic insecticide as hers don't yet have visible signs of a bad infestation. My neighbor is an elderly lady and not all "with it" but her daughter says I can treat them.

Anyway, here are some before and after shots.

First the "flat" view "before"