Liquid Amber - Best time of year to hard prune branches and roots?

[stroven2022]

G'day!

Hi everyone I just joined the forum today, this is my first post. Hope you're all well and excited for spring!

During winter I picked up an interesting looking Liquid Amber from a nursery in the hopes of creating a bonsai from it. I am very new to this, only started this year.

I like this tree because it has 3 trunks! I initially had chopped them just to fit it in the car for the ride home, but now I would like to do some more chopping to create my initial style.

I plan to chop each of the 3 trunks to different proportions to add some interest but I am just wondering the best time of year to do this? Right now (second day of spring here in Australia) there are buds all over and even some small leaves - is this an ok time to do some more chopping?

Secondly, it is very pot bound so I also want to repot the tree - Is it a good idea to repot AND chop trunks/heavy branches at the same time? Or is it better to stagger the timing on these two activities?

And one final question! I obviously needs some secondary branches to grow - would a plastic nursery pot or a bonsai pot be better for this?

Excited to hear from the masters!

buds on trunk.jpg

buds sprouting.jpg

small leaves.jpg

trunk chop idea.jpg

[kcpoole]

Hi and welcome,
You can cut back hard now and the tree will bounce back
Root prune deciduous tree at the same time as chopping the top is fine

Ken

[shibui]

Agree with KC.

Liquidamber are very resilient. They respond really well to trunk chops at any time of year. Now is as good as any.
Also able to cut roots quite hard - winter and early spring before leaves. Now is a good time, even as late as those small shoots opening.
I don't have any problem doing trunk chop and root reduction in one operation on deciduous species.

[stroven2022]

Heres some pics from the repot, not sure if I was doing it correctly. Basically the rootball was an overwhelming mess. After trying to clean it out with a bamboo chopstick, I had to saw through the central portion in order to reduce the height. I think I probably took at least 50% if not more away - thats probably risky?

Following that I put the resulting mess into a half height plastic pot of inorganic soil mix. I didn't do any bare-rooting.

I couldn't really find a nabari at all and now I am wondering if I should have tried to untangle the roots better to form one? Any thoughts on this?

repot1.jpg

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IMG_5620.jpg

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IMG_5613.jpg

...

[shibui]

Different species have different tolerance for root reduction.
I work a lot with trident maple and reducing all roots to just a few stubs is fine.
I've never had a problem with liquidamber either but I know the Americans are cautious with root pruning their native species there.
There are very few species where 50% root reduction would be a problem and I am sure that liquidamber can cope with far more than that.
Not all individual trees have a great radial root system. Looks like you've done the best you can at this stage. I've found that continued regular root pruning will slowly improve the existing radial roots. You've done enough this time. Do a little more each time until you have the roots you want.

[stroven2022]

Thanks will do!!

[stroven2022]

Here's the final product after a big chop. A couple of weeks on and it doesn't seem to be dead, there are a few buds on the trunk growing VERY slowly, probably because it is in a bit of shock after such treatment I guess? Thanks for all the tips!

amber.jpeg