Osage orange/ Dwarf pomegranite

Joanie

You don't want to start messing too much with them, but many books will advise you that there are a few things you can do now. First, when you lift them to plant them in larger containers (and don't go too large all at once!) you can spread the roots very carefully in a radial fashion so that you can get started on the all-important nebari. If they have one main root, you can snip that, but I don't know when it should be done, not having experience with seedlings. Certainly not when the tree is really young!

You can also give the trunk a little movement by carefully wiring or weighing or using guy wires. Again, not too young, by bending it you could damage the cell walls and it would die. You need to wait at least until the trunk has lignified (turned to wood) rather than when it is green. This advice is based only on reading, I haven't done this, but seeing that no one else is answering perhaps it will help. As long as the tree is still flexible you will be able to do this work, so next year should actually be fine. The root work, carried out carefully, can happen when you transplant.

Formal upright seems a slightly odd form to choose for a flowering and fruiting tree, to me. It's certainly done, but just from looking at a lot of pictures it seems that an informal would perhaps be better suited. Formal uprights are generally trimmed very precisely, which leaves little margin for the flowers and fruit. Something to think about, anyway. Sometimes choosing a form needs to be done in consideration of what works best with the species....

And just as an aside, it seems fairly difficult to create a cascade from a young tree. This is just an impression of mine, having only tried once. Trees like to grow UP, toward the light, it is their natural inclination. When you try to make it grow sideways instead, without the environmental reasons that it would choose to do so for itself, you have difficulty convincing it that it should grow the way you want it to. You may have branch die back and the apex may decide not to grow. The tree will throw its energy into making a new apex closer to the trunk that can grow up unrestricted. Fighting the tree is less effective than coaxing it. You might want to try tipping the pot sideways or planting the tree at a different angle so that the growing tip of the tree is at least going somewhat upward. Again, I'm fairly new to this and have little real experience, and someone else may chime in and say that it's all baloney. But my little cotoneaster wasn't doing well until I unwired it and tipped it and let it get on with growing.....

Good luck!
Joanie