OK - a high probability that your plant is suffering from either a high level of salts in the soil, over-watering, or both. I see you have a scheff, too. Both of these plants would benefit significantly from a fast-draining, well-aerated soil. Hopefully, you read the link I provided a little upthread. I'm going to provide another link that Will help you better understand the function of soil and how soil choice can impact your growing experience. Here is what I would do, step by step, to rejuvenate the plant. I won't go into a lot of detail because much of this is covered in the first thread about Ficus in containers that I linked to upthread, but if you have questions, just ask. I'm going to make some assumptions based on my experience and the odds, one being the plant needs repotting. 1) Flush the soil thoroughly and repeatedly to rid the soil of accumulating salts. When it stops draining, depot the plant and set it on newspapers to dry down (several hours to overnight) 2) Saw the bottom 1/3 of the roots off; then use a utility knife to cut deep vertical slits in the root mass at 3-4" intervals. Tease a little of the soil away from the perimeter of the remaining root mass, then return the plant to the same pot after adding some soil to the bottom, then fill in around the sides. Use a soil similar to what you have but add lots of perlite in the soil in the bottom 3-4". This will reduce the amt of water held in the PWT zone, which will be very helpful. 3) Move the plant outdoors into open shade and eventually into dappled sunlight or early/late sun if possible. Be careful to do this gradually - a sunburn will probably kill the plant. 4) The first time the plant needs watering after flushing the soil, fertilize with a soluble fertilizer with a 3:1:2 NKP RATIO. 'Ratio' is different and much more important than NPK %s. I prefer Foliage-Pro 9-3-6, but any of the 24-8-16 all-purpose fertilizers are ok, as is MG's 12-4-8 liquid in the yellow jug. 5) Let your tree grow wild (unpruned) until this time next year. At that time, your tree will have recovered to the point you should be ready to do a full repot and change to a high quality soil. I think these steps are about as gentle as you can be and still be proactive in turning your tree around. There IS one other thing that will work even better if it works for you. That is, remove the tree from it's pot and put it in a 5 gallon bucket or nursery can with large (1") drain holes through which the roots can run into native soil. All you need to do then is keep it watered and fertilized. This will REALLY get your tree recharged. Al

My mother in law had one which had grown up through her arbor by about two feet. After her death I pruned the bottle brush way down to replace the damage to the arbor. The plant became fuller and much better behaved. We have one here that was planted about 30 years before the killing frost of 1990 that killed it to the ground. It took two years to reappear but quickly grew back to its former size. I have not noticed anything delicate about Callistemon. Al

Hi cynsha, A lot of it depends on what you want. The flowering will cause it to branch (usually 3 branches, in my experience, but sometimes more or less). So, you should have more branches after the bloom. If you really want flowers, it is best to leave it alone for a while and not prune. This is my preference. For me, it seems to take longer for them to bloom if I take a cutting and root it. So, for quicker flowers, it is probably best to leave it alone. However, if you want more trees/bushier trees, you can take a cutting once the branches get several inches long. Just cut the original trunk below the branches, so that you have several inches of the original trunk in order to root it. Leave the cutting somewhere that it doesn't get full sun for a few days to let it callous, and then try to root it. The original plant will grow more branches, but it will take them longer to bloom again. It would probably be best to take the cutting and try to root it in spring or summer once the weather has warmed up (if that is what you choose to do). Rooting inside is more difficult. If you are concerned about the way it is growing, it should be fine. These trees do crazy things. Hope all my ramblings help.

To get back to the OP, here is my experience with amur seedlings. I dug several that were growing in a mulched bed at a commercial establishment and potted them. After a couple years they were single stem and a couple feet high. I planted them out in full sun and they branched from the base and became multi stemmed small trees after several years, on their own, with no help from me. In my case the tree did it's own thing, I believe it will do the same for you. So far as A amurense being a synonym for A tataricum, the few tataricums I've seen were single stem trees with larger foliage as opposed to amur's naturally multi stemmed wide spreading habit. Amur maple is used occasionally in mid TN as an ornamental, especially in commercial and municipal plantings. I sometimes see seedlings beneath the trees, same as I see seedlings beneath A palmatum.