Other Autumn work

A. Palmatum Deshojo 'shiche-go-san'

This tree has different shaped leaves and stunning colour changes, however the branch structure and winter silhouette do require some improvement.
The main defining branch, to the bottom left was wrapped in raffia, wired, and bent to a lower position. A turn-buckle and wire guy wire were used to gently move the branch even lower, and hold its position there. Other branches were pruned, wired and positioned, with the seond lowest branch to the left also being lowered, aided by a guy wire.
The tree's image would be improved if the leaves were reduced in size, but Deshojo are less hardy than green leaved palmatums (so I read; although my local nursery fully defoliate deshojos annually with great success!), so I will begin by doing partial defoliation this year, starting after the spring leaves harden off (a month after opening?!), by removing all larger leaves, and perhaps removing one leaf from each pair.
The nebari also needs work, but this year im concentrating on starting to build better ramification to the branch structure, with good taper, and try and reduce the leaf size.

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Hawthorne prune & repot

Although not the ideal time of year to repot, this Hawthorne really needed more than just a prune! Due to the waterlogged soil, I slipped the tree out of its pot and inspected the roots. Inside some circulating roots, the root ball was not enormous, but the tree was in organic soil - mud basically, and the lack of drainage, together with the huge pot it was in, persuaded me to remove some of the mud and roots, and to re-pot the tree into a smaller pot with a more free draining soil mix.
The tree was also cleaned with a toothbrush and water.