Here are the before and after pictures of some work done today. This is a microcarpa 'kaneshiro' I bought online in August 2015. I have never been able to decide what to do with this one. I started today thinking to style it formally with a layered canopy. I thought that would be good wiring practice and it might work.
One problem I have always had with this one is it was a trunk chop and had lots of thick vertical branches chopped at the ends. Over the years I have been taking them out. But it still stumped me. This is my only kaneshiro so I can't make a blanket statement but this one throws out lots of shoots off the main trunk and at all the primary branch junctions. So every working session requires a lot of thinning of shoots. Useful to replace the original vertical branches.
I did the left, right, back branches and then realized that the canopy was still lots of thick branches and ugly. So I changed course and took out 7 branches in the very top. A picture of those follows the before and after shots.
Before. Looks like a shrub. No definition of branches.
After. Main branches set now. Possibly one more you can see in the back just off the left of the top. Really starting over since now I have to regrow the branches and canopy.
I am still not satisfied but at least I see a path. Just at the very top you can see where I shortened it with a trunk chop a couple of years ago. The branch on the upper left almost as tall as the crown is the top of the aerial 'root' on the left. It is actually a rooted cutting I am approach grafting to create an aerial root.
Below are branches removed form the top. They will make nice cuttings to root.
Here is a picture of when I first received it. You can see there is a thick straight segment at the top. That is what I removed a couple of years ago.
Same day, root ball before and after. The saw to the right is to cut off the bottom half of the root ball to start. Notice it is in pure organic soil.
Here is 1 year later in December 2018. I don't like the straight trunk. It isn't going to be a deciduous tree in the Midwest landscape.
Next September of 2017. Looks like a badly pruned shrub.
And finally July 2018. Branches wired down. Doesn't work. The second up on the left died in 2019.
