ooowh thats gona be a nice one. from the pic i noticed you have fertalizer in the soil thats why its growing like crazy.this is a way to control growth, with less you can get the slower growing branches you want.i have had plants to a standstill on growth by limiting fert. to almost nothing.

I transplanted it from it's old home depot pot from last year to a new pot with fresh well draining potting soil...that's why it's going crazy. the fertilizer was there from it's old home. (I use liquid fertilizer on my trees) I'm glad I did now because it's getting chopped this winter. I really like this tree's trunk....the branches, not so much.

Hi Lance,

Here's an I idea I had for styling this one. Possibly keeping the two large upper branches that split from the main trunk keeping the outside one shorter than the inside one to create two different levels of canopy with the centre branch being your highest level. And also keep the one large branch growing out from the opposite side of the trunk and lower to the base of the tree which would give you the third lowest canopy layer. So any other branches would be removed as well as any unecessary, smaller branches on the three main branches below each canopy. Then you could work on developing the three canopies to achieve fullness, nice spacing between canopies (for the bird to fly thru... ) and create an nice overall peaked triangle shape.

I realize this is probably much more informal than what you are thinking of...but that's just me. The final design choice is ultimately yours. The main thing is that you have fun with it!

Leslie