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| I have recently planted a Japanese Maple. 6-8ft tall. It's slender with an overly full crown. I'm considering removing about half the crown to improve its shape. Alternatively, it may be good to leave the excess foliage to give the tree more energy producing area giving a stronger start, then cut out the excess crown next year. What do you all think about the two approaches to this situation. |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by ken_adrian z5 (My Page) on Sun, Mar 11, 12 at 17:04
| plant.. let it get 'established' for 2 years. then think about pruning ... gotta use the leaves to grow the roots to be able to cut off half the leaves ... option 2 ken |
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| Yes, let it prune itself for a year or two, removing only the branches that it chooses to eliminate. It needs all the carbohydrate production from as many leaves as it can grow so that it can get to establish the roots, like ken said. Let the top balance itself with the root system. hortster |
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- Posted by wisconsitom 4/5 WI (My Page) on Sun, Mar 11, 12 at 19:50
| Yep, there really is no other valid opinion on this one. "Leave" it be for now! ;^) +oM |
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- Posted by houstonpat 9a (My Page) on Sun, Mar 11, 12 at 22:48
| Many thanks y'all. Figured I'd ask first. |
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| The tree doesn't think they're excess leaves. |
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- Posted by ken_adrian z5 (My Page) on Mon, Mar 12, 12 at 11:30
| and to be clear.. we never.. keyword!! .. TOP A TREE .. for better shape.. when the time comes.. learn how to prune properly.. for shape ... not just giving it an all around buzzcut ... i dont really know what you are conceptualizing when you say remove half .... ken |
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- Posted by harvestman 6 (My Page) on Mon, Mar 12, 12 at 14:54
| I top trees all the time to improve shape but I understand the dangers if you top a tree and leave it to it's own growth habit. Shigo should have tried topping some trees and coming back and selecting a new central leader in a couple of years- It might have calmed him down a bit. Fruit tree growers maintain strong trees as central leaders that they periodically replace. Obviously homeowners that top trees for a view or sun aren't likely to properly manage them after the fact- but I'm just saying. No hard rules in horticulture. We just had an Oct snow that topped many of the oaks, tulips and beeches in the area. It also happened about 20 years ago and many of these trees actually developed a nice structure again after several years. |
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- Posted by mmajicmann 5b (My Page) on Mon, Mar 12, 12 at 15:32
| well there is another school of thought on this... pruning at planting improves the ratio of leaves to roots (functioning roots), thereby reducing the chance of transplant kill through excessive water loss. |
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| That school is wrong. |
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- Posted by mmajicmann 5b (My Page) on Mon, Mar 12, 12 at 16:06
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- Posted by harvestman 6 (My Page) on Mon, Mar 12, 12 at 18:42
| The article proves nothing and as far as I know, the research generally indicates that pruning does not reduce transplant stress, although I personally believe that it may when you are talking about mature trees and certain kinds of pruning that may reduce seed, flower or fruit production. The research I've seen on this involves immature trees only. However, I'm not sure that the assumption that not pruning necessarily helps a transplanted tree store more energy and the recommendations I've seen in the past is to only do the pruning you'd want to do any way to improve the attractiveness of the tree. Transplanted trees are not able to utilize their branch structure efficiently to harvest energy because of the injury to the roots but they are able to drastically reduce the water stress by closing stomata which stops photosyn.- so while pruning may not help it doesn't necessarily hurt either. |
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| If the tree is allowed to do its own selective pruning to balance the roots with the top IT will decide what the proper ratio of roots to leaves may be, much better than our guesses. If too many leaves form for the roots to support, one of two things happens: either the overabundance of leaves mature at a smaller size or they will abscise and shed as needed. Choppin' on the tree is for our psychological need, not the tree's physiological need. hortster |
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| Yep, as usual, Bboy is correct. This topic has been covered extensively here in this forum many times. The "(old) school of thought" that mmajicmann mentioned is based on a misunderstanding, or lack of understanding, of tree physiology. |
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| I guess I could add: ...except possibly in very special cases as has been discussed previously in other threads. |
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- Posted by harvestman 6 (My Page) on Tue, Mar 13, 12 at 6:58
| Please someone direct me to studies that support the idea that any branch removal is damaging to a trees ability to recover from transplanting. I'm afraid my awareness is only of Carl Whitcomb's research and other studies done in the last century. Not long ago, standard advice was to only do pruning that improved the appearance of the tree at the time of transplanting- you all seem to be suggesting that current recommendations are you are best to live with ugly until the tree is fully recovered. I see terrible specimens planted all the time with co-dominant leaders and such and if they aren't corrected immediately they are likely to be overlooked in the future. |
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- Posted by ken_adrian z5 (My Page) on Tue, Mar 13, 12 at 8:55
| hey harvestman.. how about the difference between an EXPERIENCED pruner removing a couple branches.. for whatever reason ... and a novice going to town on a plant with no root mass ... and topping the entire tree for that lollipop shape ... i understand you want to debate tree pruning THEORY ... but my target audience is the native GW novice ... and frankly.. the easiest answer is.. let it get established ... and then think about form .... in between those two.. we are talking a year or two ... and the fruit peeps dont count in this equation [for me] .. because they massacre trees for PRODUCTION.. not to be pretty ... its a whole nother ball game.. with different goals .... so i guess a novices first goal.. is to get it to live and establish ... and second.. for shape ... it just gets too complicated.. FOR THE NOVICE .. to try to do it all in one shot.. and then ignore it for the next decade ... of course.. after that we next leap to theory.. and peeps in between novice and expert ... and that is where you want to have the discussion.. and all the power to ya ... but in this case.. OP does not provide any facts.. that indicate any experience level ... so i default to providing info for the novice ... heck we dont even know if they own a pruning saw ... ken
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- Posted by ken_adrian z5 (My Page) on Tue, Mar 13, 12 at 10:20
| and dont get me wrong .. you guys go full bore on your debate ... i am not meaning to tell you to stop ... or deter you in any way .... i am just trying to re-focus the OP ... whose head i am PRESUMING may be spinning with all this theory ... always fall back to the default ... you can always cut it off later or next year ... you cant staple or tape them back on ... [or screw them back on.. but that another post.. lol] ken |
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- Posted by gardengal48 PNW zone 8 (My Page) on Tue, Mar 13, 12 at 16:01
| FWIW, I would never recommend the wholesale pruning of a Japanese maple at planting (or at any other time) without some sort of visual representation to determine that any pruning is needed at all. There are countless cultivars of JM's with vastly different growth habits, especially when young, so "routine" pruning should be avoided or at the very least, approached with due consideration. I too would opt for option 2 but I'd still wanna see photos down the road to make sure the type of pruning you contemplate is warranted or necessary. |
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- Posted by wisconsitom 4/5 WI (My Page) on Tue, Mar 13, 12 at 17:54
| Shoot tips produce chemicals-growth hormones-which are transferred to the roots, encouraging these roots to grow. Removing any more than a very modest amount of such growing tips reduces this effect. Upon being planted, job one for the new tree is to regenerate a root system. Therefor, any activity that deters this process is counterproductive to that tree. This without even getting into the food-producing activity in each leaf. +oM |
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- Posted by harvestman 6 (My Page) on Tue, Mar 13, 12 at 19:03
| And then there is the fact that any leaf in less than 30% sun is an energy sink- so we can go round and round with armchair theorizing. I was seriously asking if competent guidelines (university based) for transplanting are now recommending that no wood be removed besides broken branches at time of transplant and if there is research showing that such branch removal is detrimental to the establishment of the tree. I already know about the importance of shoot tips and excessive removal of them delaying the onset of root growth (that was well established 25 years ago when I got my training). Back then, limited branch removal during transplant was not discouraged. I'm not suggesting that recommendations to the poster were wrong in any way- I'm just trying to stay up to date on the research and thought maybe one of you could help me. Thanks. |
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- Posted by wisconsitom 4/5 WI (My Page) on Tue, Mar 13, 12 at 22:55
| Harvestman, I don't have the research at my fingertips here at home. But I do believe you could look up the work of Watson, Gilman, probably others. No easy task. You'd have to skim through a lot of stuff to find what you seek. But I'm certain it exists. Ken touched on an important point: What a skilled and experienced person may do would, in writing, quite possibly direct a novice down the wrong path. As in most endeavors, this is a matter of degree, not an absolute rule. If there's something about a new transplant's structure that really bothers you, deal with it and move on. Plants aren't existing on that fine of a line where small operations like the removal of a couple twigs throws them into the downward spiral! If that were the case, they wouldn't be covering the planet! +oM |
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- Posted by mmajicmann 5b (My Page) on Wed, Mar 14, 12 at 13:14
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| There are lots of recommendations, including university-based sources, that recommend not pruning at transplant, but, as +oM suggests, I'd guess research-presentation type recommendations (which I'd imagine is really what you are seeking) would require some digging (which I don't have time to do tonight - I've been planting seeds like crazy all night and have a ways to go). I've heard a number of horticultural researchers cover the topic (mostly along the lines of +oM's earlier explanation with a few additions), but I have nothing in black and white to offer without research. When I think of pruning at transplant, I think of a car wreck victim, who was in decent physical condition before the accident but lost a couple of limbs in the wreck. He's rushed to the hospital in a state of shock. When he gets there, the surgeon recommends (rather bizarrely) immediate gastric bypass surgery in order to balance food intake with new body weight. It just doesn't make sense, does it? |
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- Posted by harvestman 6 (My Page) on Thu, Mar 15, 12 at 6:31
| OK, the ND State article showed me an example of a guideline discouraging any transplant time pruning of healthy branches, no matter what, for trees- strange that for shrubs they suggest pruning to balance root to top. Because I have a bearing age fruit tree nursery, this subject always interests me because often with fruit trees that are bearing age it is beneficial to prune back hard or trees will often runt out because of the stress of fruit and flower production. I don't expect you guys to buy this because I have no data to back this up but when you plant hundreds of trees every year and you start off with the assumption that pruning won't help survival of ANY tree at time of trans. you live and learn or go out of business. Brandon 7 has read my opinion on this before and didn't buy it, and that's fine. Years ago I read of a study that showed that bearing peach trees can be bigger at the end of the season if they are pruned harder- and these are healthy trees not suffering the stress of transplanting. When you cut a fruit trees roots a higher ratio of energy seems to get invested in fruit and flower production. All this aside, I am thankful for the guidance you've provided me and I will try to dig up the actual studies when I have the time. One thing I'm pretty sure of is that the studies will involve only sexually immature trees or at least species that spend less energy on fruit and seed production than do fruit trees. |
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- Posted by mmajicmann 5b (My Page) on Thu, Mar 15, 12 at 16:31
| hm, i agree with your research. go with what works ;) |
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| Mmajicmann, You say you agree, but you don't really specify what exactly you agree with, or why? Can you elaborate? And, tell us about your own research? |
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| Does it not make sense to let the frippin' plant decide by itself what should die and be trimmed off later vs. our guesses? Still don't see the logic of "human-pruning" a new transplant of any type. If it is ugly, misformed, or with co-dominant leaders, which probably shouldn't have been chosen in the first place - wait for it to eliminate those branches IT elects to delete and later do our "aesthetic" and corrective pruning to satiate OUR desires to make it "look good" (to US) or to eliminate future failures. Geez. hortster |
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- Posted by wisconsitom 4/5 WI (My Page) on Thu, Mar 15, 12 at 22:16
| There's a reasonable midpoint though: Making 'subordination pruning' cuts, rather than lopping of an entire offending branch or competing leader, allows the plant to then form a branch collar at the divergence point of said branch/co-leader. Then later, it's much more primed for complete removal, or may not even need it anymore, having become a branch. That, BTW, is the problem with co-dominant stems, the lack of any branch collar where divergence happens. Wounds formed by complete removal, where no BC exists don't close well. Moderation in all things, friends. Don't go too far in any one direction and you'll be fine and so will your new tree(s). If something bothers you, trim it, just don't trim very much. Remember, a plant's response to branch removal is to produce new branches! Amazing, isn't it? +oM |
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