English Elm ramification advice

[alfiepintsworth]

I've recently been gifted this lovely English Elm. Its a bit more developed than some of my other material and am looking for advice as to how best improve the neatness and image of the ramification. The tree looks to have been hedge pruned for a few seasons causing crossing branches etc. I was told the tree was repotted last year.

Would it be best to hard prune to rebuild from secondary and tertiary branches or be more cautious only pruning dead branches and obvious flaws to slowly refine, working with whats already there?

Any other advice for the general maintenance of a more dense canopy like this would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks,
Jamie

BTW, located in Derby, UK (Zone 9a I think...)

 

[BobbyLane]

This video helped me a lot

 

[Shibui]

Without seeing the ramification close up it's hard to be specific but I doubt you'll need to go way back. Much of what's there should be useable. It's just a matter of removing the chaos to leave order. In some spots that may just be shortening the longer new shoots. In others you will need to remove whole sections. I find I need to remove whole small branches periodically to give the remaining ramification room to spread out.
Like that video says, prune to remove straight sections which should leave more attractive bends and movement.
Also remove entire shoots wherever you find clusters of branches - provided that won't leave big bare areas.
Where there's no obvious side branches to prune back to, just shorten the long straight bits, English elms are very good at growing new buds from older nodes.
Where there's a choice, remove thick parts in favour of thinner twigs to promote lighter ramification, especially important closer to the apex and towards ends of branches.