If you have ever owned a weeping Japanese maple tree, chances are after a few years it lost its tree shape. Once it turned into more of a shrub, it lost much of its appeal as a specimen tree in the garden. Because they are expensive specimen plants, people are often afraid of pruning Japanese maple trees for fear of damaging them. However these trees can easily be pruned back into a desirable shape again.
If you are ready to turn your Japanese maple back onto a tree, here are some guidelines to follow while doing so. To get started, you will most likely need a hand saw and a set of pruners. Though it might seem silly, the first thing that you should do is get down on your knees and climb inside the tree, as in right next to the trunk. A good portion of your initial pruning is going to take place from the inside.
Before you can do anything else, you need to remove all the dead wood so that you have space to work. This time of year it is easy to see the dead because the tree has leaves on it. If you are pruning during the winter, dead wood in Japanese maples is easy to find because it is very brittle and readily breaks if you bend it a bit. Unless the branch is very large, you can use your hands to remove all the dead wood in just a few minutes.
After removing the dead wood, you need to evaluate the structure of the tree and large branches. Are there any that are almost touching the ground? They should probably be removed. On most unpruned trees there are likely to be a couple large branches to remove. If you are afraid of removing large branches, start by removing smaller ones that are obviously hanging down too low. As you keep pruning, it will quickly become obvious which large branches are hindering your efforts. You will likely have removed almost all of the smaller pieces off of them to the point they are basically just sticks and adding nothing to the aesthetic value of the tree.
After removing the large branches start removing long pieces from the remaining branches. I typically start with the pieces that are touching the ground. Don’t be afraid to remove branches way back up into the tree. The trick to making a natural looking tree is to remove pieces all the way up so that none of the branches are cut at the same height. Also, remember to always cut back to another branch, don’t just chop at the ends, or you’ll end up with a tree that has a crew cut. There is no set amount or distance into the crown of the tree you can take a branch. I just select what I want to remove and follow it back to a suitable branch junction and remove it there. It might be 3 inches up or all the way back to a main branch. Until you get the hang of it err on the side of caution and remove a section up to a branch; if it isn’t high enough off the ground remove a bit more.
Continue removing progressively smaller pieces until you have thinned it enough to have a tree shape again. At some point during this process you will want to come back to the outside of the tree. Once you have the larger pieces out it will be easier to work from the outside of the tree. Before you finish, and periodically throughout the process you should step back and make sure the crown looks good. Is it far enough off the ground, balanced, etc.? The bottom of the crown won’t be completely even, but that is ok, you don’t want it to be, you just want the overall shape to be balanced. And there you have it, the basics of Japanese Maple pruning.
