1/4. Thats like 5mm? Should be no more than 50 cm high? For a 2meter s shaped garden tree you might want the first bend above 50cm. So the part to bend might not be there yet. Just plant in 45 degrees and stake it. Let it grow for a few years before taking any further decitions. I have never seen or heard about wiering niwaki. In ground a good season it will be only a few weeks before the wire bites leaving scars that will take a lot of time to heal.

Hi Josef,

Would you do me a favor? Google "Bloodgood Maple landscape tree".
And post us some pictures of what you like to see in your garden.
Then if you have your tree deliverd ,show us the tree, and some of us can point you to the direction of how to grow your tree of your liking in one of the pictures you showed.
Easer for us, as landscape tree's are not bonsai's. So most bonsai people, don't style landscape tree's. So i or we don't know what you want. But if you can give an example of what you have in mind. We might can point you to the right direction, how to grow it, how to cut it, how to get your results, in a estimated guess of years.

I don't like to do much shaping or branch work for at least a year. What I will usually do is look at the tree every now and then and think about it. Where is the strong branch? Do I want to chop it off and make a new leader? Does it want to lean? What angle? Etc.

If it is pencil thick, you can bend it next hear as easily as this year. I would say wait to do anything, and in the mean time let the tree get plenty of sunlight, and water it well.

Rorror wrote:

Would you do me a favor?

Sorry, I never got any more notifications and didn't see this. I wound up just planting them straight up and doing nothing. I'm not even sure they will survive til next year, they have what looks like severe sun scorch, but I am told it could also be too much water as it hasn't stopped raining here since October of last year, highly unusual. And the rainy season (hurricanes) is just started...

Tropfrog wrote:

1/4. Thats like 5mm? Should be no more than 50 cm high? For a 2meter s shaped garden tree you might want the first bend above 50cm.

They supposedly get to 4.5 meters. But yeah, it's only 45cm now. I just planted them straight up since I never got any more notifications on this thread.

As a niwaki garden tree you decide the hight, not the tree. 2m was just an example.

Oh, ok. I wasn't planning on doing niwaki. I jut thought some movement in the trunk would be nice.

Just do what you want then.