Hey, your tree...your game plan! I think he was more thinking of tapering to the branch itself. By cutting back to allow it to grow out will give that. Which I think was Will's thoughts by what I seen on his virtual. But still a decent tree. Won't take as many years to develop I would imagine. Doing it your way. Wishing you success...anticipating my own maple to arrive possibly tomorrow or Friday.
Those fall colors have me hooked everyone keeps sharing. Will you get to see that fall foliage like we do up north? I know some do but less further down south. Not quite sure how far south the leaves turn.
Cutting back at this point with this tree will not establish taper. The whole reasoning behind cutting back at this point with the tree, is to force more growth starting in tighter to the base of the trunk. I have removed the regular soil and have replaced it with bonsai soil because it is a very fast draining soil and allows for more air to reach the roots. This soil actually slows the tree's rapid growth down, this is why we put our tree's in it. The reasoning for wanting to slow the tree down, is that it creates very tight spacing between the nodes, where as the regular soil allowed for fast rapid growth, and large spacing between the nodes. Reasoning behind why we want smaller spacing between nodes, is that it allows for much more branching to grow, within a tighter confine.
So, with this tree... The branching that I have wired and that you currently see... they are branches that have grown as a result of fast growth, due to being in regular soil. There are larger spacing between the nodes on the branches. So, if one would like to have a very tight network of branching coming off of these branches right in close to the trunk... then you would want to cut in further than I have cut. The branching, that then protrudes from this area, because it is now in a bonsai soil, will have very tight spacing between the internodes, because the growth of the tree is being forced to slow down due to the soil. One then cuts again tight in, and now the branching will be more within a tighter space, and the branching that protrudes from here, will have even smaller spacing between nodes, due to the fact that not only are you slowing the growth of the tree down due to the soil... but, now also, you are forcing it to slow down more, by cutting, and not allowing for the tree to grow.
This action does not build taper... The branches over time will gradually build up taper as they are allowed to grow out and as more and more finer branches pull nutrients through the main branch, but doing this process really puts the idea of building taper on the back burner, for it takes years, upon years to build this up this way. The cutting of the branches now, at the small size that they are, only allows for the ramification process, to begin sooner, rather than waiting for the taper to be resolved. If one was seeking to build taper, it is much faster to of allowed the branching to run free, for another couple of years... the spacing between nodes that is currently on the branching that I have, will not change in size, a branch grows from the ends outward... the branch would only increase in diameter. So, after a couple of years of letting the branches run free, I could still cut back to the same spot or closer, and now my branch will of been twice the thickness, if not more. One then would allow for the next branches that come off to grow, and run free, then repeat the process.
If one examines the diameter of my trunk... it is going to take years and years of growing to get my branching that is protruding off of the trunk to resemble anything close to the appropriate scale of what would naturally be a branch that forms the continuation of the trunk. It would be faster and probably a quarter of the time if I allowed for the branching to grow out and then chop back... but, then I would still have to spend years at a later time after establishing the taper, working the ramification... The other process that I am doing and that Adair mentioned, allows for the years upon years of development into the ramification to begin now, with the understanding that by the time this is all there, so will be the taper.
