These are some pics of an Acer Palmatum that was acquired few years ago, its main attraction then was it had a good trunk and was cheap.
It was planted in the ground and basically forgotten save for clipping back any long growth for about for about four years, it was lifted in 2018 and planted in a washing up bowl.
When it was potted up it had had a major fault in that it had a very ugly large root base and the two trunks were too high above the base, so in the spring of 2019 it was air layered with a third branch close to where the two main trunks split wired up to make a triple trunk, in August 2019 the wrapping around the roots was taken off this proved very successful as you will see the large root mass formed.
The tree was left to grow unchecked for rest of 2019, in March this year before the tree started budding there were areas where there were no branches some of the long extension shoots were selected a hole was drilled through the trunk angled slightly down and the shoot threaded through and sealed with paste.
The hope is over the next couple of years the tree will take up supplying these shoots with sap and they can be detached from the donor shoot and become branches.
Last week the tree was thinned out leaving only the branches required for its future development.