I collected an Acer platanoides (Norway Maple) in the spring this year and it put on pretty good growth. I didn’t touch it, just let it grow all year. You can see from the picture that it doesn’t have any taper so I want to let it grow for a few years, probably into a fairly large tree.
I’m wondering if anyone has suggestions for how I should handle these areas with multiple branches coming from the same spot, like I said I want to let it grow and thicken but I don’t want to create gnarly areas and scars. Should I prune them all down to one, if so should I do it now or wait until new growth hardens off in the spring.
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You are going to want to take all those spots with multiple shoots down to one shoot, and the top at the chop site should be taken down to two. Otherwise you’ll end up with big swellings in short order.
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If you want to get taper, you probably want to cut the main trunk a lot shorter and let one of the lower shoots develop into a leader a meter or so long, then cut that down to a low shoot, and go again.
Also you want to do it in the ground. Will take for ever in a bonsai pot.
The other option is develop the branches as they are and carve and hollow the trunk to disguise the chop.
But defo clear out all those clustered branches to just one.
Also watch the deciduous development stream.
The branches you are building, you need to let them grow out to 5 nodes long, then trim back to 1, and go again
