So I paid for a sprout Full Moon Jap and got a half assed grafted as Acer Palmatum with a twig of the full moon grafted on to the trunk as a branch. The tee is mightly heathly as ever given its growth but I don't know what to do. I finally got the full moon to sprout. But the lower is just typical Palmatum.

I was thinking of letting the bottom grow crazy for trunking. And try to nurture the full moon and cut back the growth in a few years leaving just the full moon.

What do you think everybody?

If you shave down everything under the graft site, the Shirasawanum will grow much much better (the graft could even die if the rootstock take the power). Theorycally.. Cause the tree somehow felt the urge to sprout out from the rootstock. Maybe weak grafting?

/I currently working to detach a Shira aureum from the rootstock. Past year I failed, but I’m optimistic (or stupid... your choice..) for this year’s air layer progression./

remove all the regular green branches. LEt the desired cultivar grow. Next year decide whether you want to layer it off the grafted rootstock.

leatherback wrote: remove all the regular green branches. LEt the desired cultivar grow. Next year decide whether you want to layer it off the grafted rootstock.

Good, you’re here.. I hope you can answer... : ) Why would a mountain maple pushed out that much shoots while serving as rootstock? Could this happening if someone cut too much from the grafted cultivar, start to weakening/failing the graft?

I am not sure. I know that in some cases the rootstock starts growing. It is normally stronger than the grafted variety. Which could explain. If they then start to signal the roots they are strong, they get more resources. Eventually leading to the demise of the graft.

So now that I got some advice I cut all the unwanted cultivar back. I have three more spouts today finally of the full moon so I'm hoping by me taking away all the other branches everything is directed towards the full moon. We shall see.

Removal of rootstock worked. I have three new branches in the last week I think letting the tree settle until growth happened was correct even if it's not the desired variety. I think that helped establish healthy root after transfer.

Updated pic