Progression of Acer macrophyllum C

[0soyoung]

I prefer the your first pictured front, but I find the branch I've colored out visually troubling, regardless of which you view you choose. My thinking is that it the tree would look much better if this were a thinner branch with a much shorter first internode (hence remove the entire thing and begin regrowing a thin version of it next year). The thing is, IMHO, that it is in the background but has a visual weight that contradicts the perspective of depth consistent with the rest of the tree. Otherwise, I quite like what I see.

 

[0soyoung]

but I find the branch I've colored out visually troubling,

Oops.

 

[parhamr]

@0soyoung you’ve correctly identified the flawed trunk/branch I was trying to hide

I’ve been contemplating what to do. It has nice internode distance, directionality, and branching, but only up top above its straight and taper free section with far too long of an internode distance. Ugh.

It could make a decent air layer or I could try some grafting. Otherwise, simply removing it is almost guaranteed to produce a few replacement buds to choose from. I’ve been waiting to see if the tree will solve this problem for me, but that hasn’t gone anywhere.

I should just be brave next year and remove it.

Overall, it’s important to note my vision for this tree is fairly naturalistic in proportions. Although right now it is chunky and squat, this is “only” the scaffold for a larger, broad informal broom canopy. The trunk diameter above the flare is 2" and the height is 18". I’ve been envisioning the target height as something around 12 to 14 times the diameter. I’m inspired by some of the street trees in older Portland neighborhoods where these bigleafs are 80 feet tall and have 6–8' diameter trunks.

 

[parhamr]

I don’t think I’ve posted enough photos of this tree in leaf.



Here’s the first flush in all it’s overpowered glory. We’ve had an extremely wet period of 45 ish days and some cool weather. The trees were generally slightly late to put on growth this year.

It appears this tree will do well with partial defoliation and/or structural prunings this year.

 

[parhamr]

On June 13 I gave it a little tune up with partial defoliation and some pruning.



I did just the one pruning this year — the summer was hot and the tree was almost fully dormant from late August through to leaf drop. The leaf color was brief but nice — only yellow, and without reds.



After a minor pruning. I left three nodes on each branch so the tree can run out its most coarse growths in the spring. I’ll go back to the first node on everything around May or June next year.

 

[yamadoriboi]

Loving the looks of you macrophyllum and I'm hoping you can answer some questions I have about how to properly develop this tree.
Here is my yamadori macrophyllum collected July 2023:
1. What soil mixture did you start this tree in?
2. How to you expose your tree to weather/seasons? I'm in Northern California 3500ft elevation.
3. How soon did you perform your first pruning?
4. Any suggestions for my tree here? Being 1yr old this year. Kept inside through the winter and did not lose its leaves. Showing green buds right now but no growth since collection.
Thanks in advance!