Young Maple Pruning Trunk and Branches

[AudioGuy17]

Hello,

We have a young maple tree in our backyard which has been growing taller for the last 2 years since first discovered as a sapling. My concerns are that there are multiple trunks and it's not shaped properly. Not knowing much about this, it seems it is in dire need of some pruning. I'm not certain on approach, even after spending some time on various sites and reading other threads on this forum.

I'm trying to understand is now a good time to prune? I'm in the suburbs of Chicago.

What and how much should I prune?

What areas would make the most sense to do first?

Thanks.

 

[TNTreeHugger]

I Love clump maples - I've trained quite a few volunteers in my yard as multi trunk. Here's one of mine... now

and three years ago

Yours though, still has a good central leader, so if it were in my yard, I would cut off everything below the green "X" in the photo, clear back that mulch from the base, and wait and see how it fills out in the spring. Right now, to me, the top is looking kind of leggy and spindly. If it still looked that way next year, I would cut it back to about 2" above ground level and let it come back as a clump. I like to leave 3, or 5 good trunks and let it grow another season or two. If it still doesn't look good, get rid of it. Maples are a dime a dozen and are cheap and easy enough to replace.
If you are wanting a nice single leader tree, go to a good nursery and pick out a high quality specimen. ..then again, if that's what you want, save yourself a lot of time and get rid of this one now and replace it.

 

[ATH]

If you want good long-term structure, prune down to one stem (trunk), then train that to have a single dominate leader.

https://hort.ifas.ufl.edu/woody/structural-pruning-flash.shtml

http://tcimag.tcia.org/publication/...iew":"articleBrowser","article_id":"3346200"}

I know some people like the look of multi-stemmed trees...but the reality is they will be short-lived compared to trees with stronger form.

 

[AudioGuy17]

Thank you both for your responses.