AusBonsai

I bought this Liquidambar Styraciflua at around 2m tall, in a grow bag from a bargain section at a nursery. I gave it the trunk chop in winter 2021.

It's coming into it's third year since the chop now, and I've made some rookie mistakes along the way, but I think I can correct them over some years. The intention has always been to develop it into the classic up and out broom style. I don't have many deciduous trees but this has proven to be very suitable here in Southern WA. The hot wind in summer absolutely hammers the japanese Maple I have and the leaves get burnt to a crisp, but the Liquidambar handles it no worries. The autumn colour is always great too. Before I did the chop it got yellow and purple colour but since the chop it's consistently been purple and then bright red.
Before chop April 2021
After chop August 2021
The season's growth Jan 2022
Before work September 2022
After work September 2022
Autumn colour 2023
Before work June 2023
After work June 2023
My next step to deal with the branches that are too strong compared to the rest

I like it a lot.
Nice solid trunk and how good is that autumn colour!
Liquid amber grow strongly in my area so keen to see how how this develops.

Liquidamber - difficult to kill and still gives good autumn colour in warmer areas. What's not to like?

Love it and ditto what Shibui says
John(JP)
CBS

Not as much autumn colour as past years but still nice. It’s been a bit warmer than usual this autumn here, and the position I have this tree in the garden now is a little bit more protected and less exposed to the cold which would make a difference.

Now that I can see the structure again I’m feeling happy with the progression over the past year.

I went fairly hard pruning this back in preparation for spring. It's moving forward nicely in my opinion but there's some branches that are very straight, have little taper, and ugly thickenings. I want to rectify some of these primary branches sooner rather than later.

There's a couple of branches that I'm still waiting for some buds to hopefully form to cut back to I'll mark in the pictures.

I've also noticed I really need to start growing branches upwards to fill in the centre space so I have left a binch of buds to start those branches.
Before
After
The ugly branches I really need some new buds

I am looking forward to when you expose the nebari, love the solid trunk