I have a 50 year old flowering apricot bonsai (see attached picture). Could someone tell me if new branches only shoot out from the green area of the branch or can they be coming out of the brown (more mature) area? What is the best way to prune the tree so I can keep the canopy lowered beside looping the branches? Thank ahead.

Hi Tran,
I have one of those myself (cf my profile picture), they are very beautiful but hard to tame. As far as I know they don't bud back on old branches and pruning needs to be done very carefully. An interesting read is this one:
peterteabonsai.wordpress.com/tag/ume/
Good luck!

Marie wrote: As far as I know they don't bud back on old branches and pruning needs to be done very carefully.

I do not have one, but that is my understanding too.

Tran, Nice Tree. It might also by styled in a weeping form, have you considered this?

Nice tree indeed. I like the trunk and the canopy looks quite nice too.
The only problem is the position and girth of the two first branches - but if this was my tree, also considering that it won't bud back easily, I would probably just accept that as a fact - it would be a shame to remove them and loose (as far as I can see) a lot of the (finer branches in) the canopy.

Hi Marie,

I was afraid of that. Thank you so much for the link. It is what I've been looking for. Looks like I need to learn how to graft.

That is an interesting idea. I've never thought of that. I was just worrying about how to pull back the canopy so it not so elongated. Looks like grafting is the way to go.