This is some progress on my Japanese Maple I posted a few months back.
I trimmed this plant earlier in the season (Posts in my profile). It backbudded all the way down the truck. One branch sprouted from where the cut was made. That is the leader you see coming out the top of the canopy.
As you can see from the first two pics the rest of the tree is beautiful and more than I was expecting this season.
In the last three pics u can see the leader. The leaves coming out the top of it seem to be stunted while none of the other leaves are affected.
Is something wrong with my plant?
If yes!
Should I treat it?
Can I treat it?
Should I ignore it?
Outdoors full sun in morning shaded noon and evening zone 8b.
Watered 3-5 times a week depending on the weather.
Fertilizer is TPS plant foods TREE MIX in the water of every 10th watering.
This is a pre-bonsai I'm working on so it is in a well draining bonsai mix.
It was also reported 4 months ago just weeks before the trim.
by Sumchi
2 Comments
Hopefully you get better comments than this, but I’ll say from my experience with garden JMs that summer growth can be weird. Perhaps this particular situation points to something, but I’ve branches like this on garden trees that set buds like normal and leaf out like normal the following year.
that’s just what new growth looks like in response to a pruning. It doesn’t have as much energy as the first flush of growth, so it’s typically smaller. That’s the whole point of pruning and defoliation – to get smaller leaves.