Let It Grow Out

My common weakness is to work on plants (e.g. young Tridents) needing to grow out. Always leaving the apex or sacrifice branch, halting long internodes by cutting back to the first pair of leaves, this slows the overall trunk growth in this season. 🤔

Experiment/ Question

For saplings that are apical dominant and growing taller with lots of upper branches, should I let it grow out to beef up the lower trunk size?

Or should I be clipping the apex and reducing foliage and branches on top to encourage sunlight low and focused energy on lower branch and trunk?

Experiment or Confession

  • Young larch very healthy.

  • Later development recommends to prune or pinch back to inner bud to encourage shorter branches and foliage closer to the trunk.

  • Did this for 3-4 of 8 Larches. Slows down growth, but is to encourage shorter branches that are not shaded out.

  • Propagation: 1.5” cuttings, hormone, perlite fines + cococoir mix, covered.

Air layered Maples

The difference between young trees with very small trunks from cuttings or seedlings, I was fortunate to yield a number of Japanese Maples from air-layering. These trunks range from 1/2” to 1” diameter. These are developing primary branches and avoiding random, messy branches and leaves. Primary branch is let to grow long, but avoiding long internodes. Secondary branches are trimmed to ensure short internodes and bifurcation. Upper primary branches are selected to show the trunk but also for balance. Eliminating downward or redundant branches, removing any long internode branches, pinching the new middle growth between the first pair of leaves if the internode is acceptable. Removing random buds & leaves that do not define the trunk and primary branches. Allows plenty of light and diverting all energy to desired benches and leaves.

Michael Wei