Japanese Maples: Crimson Queen Trimming Suggestions, 1 by Tau10

Tau10 wrote:
There are some beautiful trees here, and good advice. What I do after the weather is cold, and all the leaves are off is take out all the dead branches, of course, sounds simple enough but when I inherited by CQ it had a lot of dead branches in it, and the branches touched the ground and were dipping upwards. I like my tree to show the beautiful branch work as well as the leaves. Mid summer I did a serious prune job to start to bring the branches out from behind all those leaves. Once all the leaves are dropped I'll take out any dead ones I missed. Then I'll wait until the new leaves come out and are harden before I do anymore work. I guess I'm going for a bonsai look without the pot, but I'm also thinking of making a wooden cedar box and putting it in that. That way I can enjoy the sort of Bonsai look. It's different then the conventional Bonsai's, but that is what I like, to take a style and add it my own unique flare to it. My newest Japanese maple will stay in the planted it came in for now, later I'll put it in a cedar planter.

Like this one that I found on this site: