Best time to trunk chop japanese maple

DonnaCosta

Can anyone tell me the best time to trunk chop a japanese maple? I have a japanese maple that I purchased from a nursery, it is about 3 feet tall. Can it be trunk chopped after the leaves fall off without damaging the tree? Also, how long after the trunk chop must I wait before doing any root work. Thanks in advance. Donna

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Carl_Bergstrom

Hi Donna,

You certainly can - and probably should - do your trunk chop while the tree is dormant and the leaves are off. I'd recommend a late winter trunk chop followed by a late winter / early spring repotting. You can go ahead and do substantial root work on your maple, though bear in mind that the harder you prune the roots, the slower the growth that you'll get in the first year - and thus the slower the trunk chop wound will heal.

Best regards,
Carl

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Attila

Hi Donna,

You could trunk-chop after the leaves are fallen (you don't want to disturb the roots until springtime) and it is most likely that the tree will come out fine next year. However, there is small danger of the maple dying during winter due to pathogens entering the tree. The tree is most defenseless during this time.

Severe pruning can also cause die-back during this time.

So the safest time is Spring, when the buds start swelling.

If you are planning a small bonsai (shohin, mame) with short internodes, you can do the chop a few weeks after the first leaves appear, so the new growth won't be as strong and coarse.

If you want a large trunk, do the chop before the first leaves come out.

Japanese maples belong to what some bonsaist call the "weaker" type of trees, so I wouldn't disturb the roots when trunk-chop is done. You could do it if you have a nice compact rootball, with lots of fine roots close to the base, but we don't know how your roots look like, so better to be cautious.

Regards,
Attila

Attila

Hi Donna,

I certainly don't disagree whith Carl's recommendation, mine was a little more cautious, for people with less experience.
There are slightly different roads to the same destination.

(BTW, what happened is that I started my response over 1 hour ago, then I was interrupted by a long phone call, and by the time I finished, Carl sent his. Had I read his response, I wouldnt' have sent mine, to avoid confusion on your part)


Regards,
Attila

Carl_Bergstrom

And for my part, I agree wholeheartedly with Attila's timing suggestions - he's stated what I meant to, quite a bit more precisely. I should have stressed that an early-winter trunk chop is not a great idea, for the reasons that he mentions. Here in Seattle, I'd chop around March 1. Basically, one is trying to balance the need to get growth relatively soon after making the chop with the need to avoid chopping after the tree has started to shift energy into the above-chop region in the spring.

As for rootwork, certainly no harm in going with Attila's recommendations. With Japanese maples, I've never suffered anything worse than slow growth regardless of how hard I work the roots - but your mileage could well vary there and by leaving the roots largely intact you would get stronger growth to help in healing the chop scar.

With my best regards,
Carl

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TreeBay

careful! some of those Japanese Maples (named varieties in particular) are top grafted to garden variety Acer palmatum. So, if you have a fillagree or dissectum or something, if you chop it, you could wind up cutting off the expensive, grafted part.

Regards,

Matt

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DonnaCosta

Thanks for all the help.

How would I know if the tree was grafted? Can it be seen?

If i trunk chop around March 1, can i root prune this spring or should I wait a year to give it a chance to recover? It is in a large container, after purchasing it looked root bound so i replanted it into a larger container. I'm not really sure how good the roots are b/c I didn't take any of the soil off i just moved to a bigger pot.

Also, I have a few trident maples that i have been growing in large containers to thicken up, should these be treated the same way regarding trunk chopping and when to prune the roots?

I have one trident fattening up in the ground for the last 2 years. It has thickened up but not really that much more than the ones I have in large containers. If I dig that one up this spring, is it safe to trunk chop at the same time?

Thanks again for all your help. Donna

Carl_Bergstrom

If the tree is one of the named varieties (e.g. Sango Kaku, Crimson queen, Seriyu, Deshojo, Red pigmy, Koto no ito, Kotohime, etc., etc., etc.) it's probably a grafted variety. You should be able to see the graft as well, as a distinct change in bark texture and/or a swelling typically (but not always, for some of the weeping varieties) near the base of the trunk.



After discussing this with Attila and reading his rationale, I'd probably reverse my previous recommendation and suggest that you take the conservative approach of waiting for a year.



I'm not a trident expert, so I'll defer to those who grow them.

Best regards,
Carl

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