Challenging cotoneaster

[Gollum169]

I bought this cotoneaster last fall on deep clearance. It is kind of a mess but does anyone have any recommendations on direction for style or pruning? There are a lot of straight branches and it is rather 2 dimensional. I'm thinking it might require drastic pruning but I'm willing to try. It is starting to push out some green so I figure now is the time to repot out of the nursery soil and do some pruning.
Just trying to learn!
Thanks!

 

[Gollum169]

 

[Eckhoffw]

Do you know, what variety it is?

Having worked with a handful of these, I would do decide Whether I want to grow it out to thicken, or chop it low.

The growth is very angular on these, so you get lots of straight sections. I’ve also found branches -whether high or low- thicken up to similar size pretty quickly. Therefore you have to do some routine hard prunes to achieve taper. These are tough and vigorous.

Some examples:
This one has given me lots of trouble but is slowly getting somewhere. I slowly reduced the trunk, but wished I had cut much lower 4 yrs ago.


This one has some movement, but will need to be severely chopped down. Notice the mono sized taperless branching. This one is in the ground to get big
So I guess as always, it comes down to whether or not you’re happy with the trunk.

For a small bonsai you chop low now.

 

[Gollum169]

Thanks for the pics! It is an "Autumn Inferno."
It has been in my garage cold frame this winter. I guess I should research some other pics of cotoneaster and see if anything fits!

 

[PonderingSage:]

Part of the art is achieving scale, so you will have to reduce it to bring in the proportions, or let it grow out as stated above.
Looks like promising stock!

 

[Gollum169]

Maybe this spring I will just repot and trim everything back a bit and let it grow this year.

 

[Dabbler]

That sounds like a good idea, when you repot try and pick a front.

 

[Gollum169]

Can I repot and make a couple big cuts at the same time? While I was repotting tonight I noticed that there are a lot of branches coming out of the top of the main trunk in close proximity. I know I won't use all of them and I'm afraid it will develop a huge bulge there if I don't get rid of a couple of them

 

[Gollum169]

This is the area I'm concerned about