My sister had a family friend come over to do a bunch of yard work. This is what he did to the Japanese maple and she is absolutely distraught. A lot of other things were discussed but doing this was absolutely not. No clue what he was thinking, my sister is in tears and so upset and he is just saying that it will grow back. Do you think it ever will? I feel so bad. It definitely needed a trim but he absolutely butchered it.
I don’t have a before picture from today but found one from Google maps from this year to give you an idea
by shockdoctrine
5 Comments
It’ll backbud somewhat but it’ll never go back to what it was. Never, ever, let this person prune again. These are fairly robust trees but two things to note: it’ll take lots of time to fill back in and this is not the ideal time to prune this species if you live in the northern hemisphere so they may have killed it but you’ll know what you’re looking at next spring. Very sorry it happened, this was a beautiful old Japanese maple.
Some people may disagree but this tree will survive, might take several years for the bottom foliage to come back, but it’s not a doomed tree.
They did a weird job of raising the canopy but idk man, this isn’t the worst I’ve seen.
She may want to lean into bonsai. That trunk is incredibly interesting and with training could potentially be a very interesting tree. “Bonsai” is kinda just making trees look interesting, this one obvs on a larger scale but you get what I mean
Edit: might as well expose the root flare and add some mulch
Every time I look up at this picture I laugh, I’m sorry. I just can’t understand the thought process. And then all the brush to the right untouched?
I think this person has a vendetta to settle against Japanese Maples and he conned you into letting him do the property.
why why WHY do peeple keep hiring “arborists” to ruin ur butefoul branch
They tend not to respond well to heavy pruning…. Not much you can do now but wait and see.