are you going to bonsai it...

are you eventually go to plant it in mother earth???

whats your goal ... then we can tell you where to go with it ...

thats a very peaty potting media you have it in.. long run.. it will hold too much water.. but for the fact that you probably cant kill a maple if you wanted to.. lol ... if you want to play with other trees .... you will want to use a cactus mix..

if it were me.. i would take off everything on the left.. and stake the right hard.. so that it straightens up ...

and then.. i would plant it in mother earth this fall.. because ...next year.. will be 4 feet tall at a min.. and that pot will be too small ...

bonsai is your only option.. if you are forced to keep it potted..

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: its potential ... and it will grow very fast

Thank you! I do plan on planting it in my yard this fall.

I thought the softer/more peaty mixture would be good since this particular plant seems to suck up water like nothing I've ever seen (hah :)), but I'll definitely keep the cactus mix in mind for any other trees I purchase.

The staking idea sounds really interesting- is it something I can actually do in the pot or would it need to wait until I actually plant it in the ground?

Thank you again for your time and advice!

only if there is a hole in the pot.. where you can put a stout stake.. right down thru the pot.. to hold it ..

to really tie it down.. straight.. you are going to have to put some real stress on the stake/tree .. and that shallow pot .. and fluffy media.. is NOT going to hold the stake itself ...

ken

It's such a little guy, I'd just plant it and let it make its own decisions for a while in terms of forming a main leader. It easily could still do that. All the branches that presently exist, save any one which does in fact become the main stem, are temporary branches. Now since it does appear to have quite the Y crotch going there, you could shorten up the less desirable one of the two which will help the tree form a single leader. But even just planting it and doing nothing else for now is a reasonable route to take. It's a baby. I continue to not see why a potted plant can't be planted in the ground. It's not as if there's no stress on it being forced to spend the summer in a pot. And potted stuff can be planted any time the ground is workable.

+oM