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Pruning Japanese Maples

18 years ago

What's the best way to prun a Japanese Maple to give it the full beautiful look as it grows? I have a 6 foot JM that has about 10 off shouts that are almost 2 feet longer than the rest of the tree. Should I trim those back slightly or let them grow out even more. Just want to have a nice full JM as it gets bigger. Thanks for any advice.

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Comment (1)

mattlwfowler
18 years ago
Trimming the long shoots will give you fullness fairly quickly, but it may also clutter the structure if not done carefully. Keep in mind that you will usually get two new terminal shoots from each stem that you prune. I guess it depends on what kind of JM you have, but I prefer to focus on the structure when they are young as they will fill out with time in most cases.
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