AusBonsai

hey guys, i put my Japanese maple, Chinese elm and azalea in bigger pots on the 10/10/10, i put them in bigger pots to let them grow because they where still too small for my liking.

my question is, if i want them to grow and get bigger do i just let them be and not touch them or should i still defoliate them and trim some crazily growing shoots.

i am pretty new to all this so the question might sound stupid but if someone could help that would be great. thanks guys.

my advice would be to leave the longest shoots on the botom to faten up the trunk and roots. i wouldnt defolate as thats generally only used to reduce the size of the leaves. id only cut of any shoots that you definetly dont want, any shoots that might be usefull id keep just in case you need them other than that id just make sure there in good soil and to fertilize them hope this helps

In general more growth equals more girth. I wouldnt worry much about the maple and elm . you will proberly cut all branches off in time and regrow new ones as they may become too heavy or bad placement. you will find you will proberly cut 2 or so times reducing the trunk height to get taper into the trees over time as well, so my advice- let grow, feed, lift too work the roots every winter or 2. Thats how i grow anyway. conifers i treat alittle different .

Just be a little carefull and dont allow the Elm to grow multiple branches from the same location or else your trunk will develop reverse taper.

Cheers,
Mojo

hey guys thanks for all the advice,

hey de_keizer, you mentioned that defoliating the tree will only cause the leaves to get smaller, that's something that i want, but would defoliating stop the tree from growing. that might be a silly question but someone told me that.

thanks

from wat i understand larger leaves produce more energy for the tree so it should grow quicker so once you have the trunk and branches you want you can start reducing leaf size

that makes sense thanks heaps mate