Pruning Your Japanese Laceleaf Maple

Seattle is full of gorgeous Japanese laceleaf maples, Acer palmatum ‘Dissectum.’  They are the maples with an elegant, weeping branching pattern and can be quite valuable in old age if they’ve been well cared for.  February is the perfect time to prune a laceleaf maple before it has leafed out.  Without leaves, the branching pattern is visible and you can make decisions on which branches to keep and which must be removed.  If left unpruned, it becomes a twiggy mass and loses that delicate, filigree pattern for which Japanese laceleaf maples are so prized.

Pruned Japanese laceleaf maple

We have two Japanese laceleaf maples that were planted by a previous owner. One is about 4 1/2′ tall and has become a lovely, large specimen at the entrance to our driveway, at least it would be if we prune it  soon.  The other is about 2 1/2′ high and, much to my consternation, is trying to become a groundcover.  Last spring I worked on the smaller one, removing branches that were starting to crawl along the ground and opening up the branching pattern.  I left the small branches that were pointing skyward, in hopes that they would eventually become the next tier of foliage.

Unfortunately, I never got around to pruning the larger laceleaf last spring, so now I’m faced with a twiggy mass that will take some patience to sort out.  Where to start?  I always start by removing any twigs that died over the winter.  They are light grey in color and usually snap off at the base.  It’s not unusual to have whole branches of a laceleaf maple die back, and those should also be pruned off where they meet live wood.  I take off the twigs that have grown on the existing branching pattern I’ve developed over previous years.

Japanese laceleaf maple before pruning

Then comes the fun, artistic part.  I like to see a curving pattern that moves upward and outward, avoiding having branches cross or grow back towards the center.  I am very tentative at first, taking off small branches to see if I like the effect, then getting bolder with my pruners and standing back frequently to see the overall effect.  I’ve heard of people lying down under their laceleafs and looking up through the branches to make decisions, but that would not be me.  I always cut the branch off back to a joint where it meets another branch.  It seems brutal, but otherwise you end up with these odd stubs that will host multiple twigs.  I don’t like the look of a “haircut” around the bottom of a laceleaf.  It reminds me of when our children were small, we were poor, and I gave my husband and kids their haircuts.  My mother always said they looked like I used the same bowl on all of them.  She wasn’t far off.

The sun is shining.  The birds are singing.  It’s a perfect day to go out and commune with my Japanese laceleaf maple.

Jan Rodda

February 13, 2011