Hi Dsqx, big transplant I would vote against trying to tilt this tree. If you must think of it as lifting up one end and shoving more dirt in on that side. No need to torture your back and your father's back again. Man, you two planted a 13' tall tree! Reasons against: -It is a tree, and a Japanese maple at that. It just is not going to grow straight as an arrow and Japanese maples have a bit of a unique form anyway. -As you noticed with all the damage last year, Emperor I and all JM's I know are only marginal in zone 5. Transplanting and digging up before winter stresses them further. I wonder if early spring would be better if you decide to do this. Maybe the high res picture will convince me otherwise. Maybe I am just sorta a hippie with a less formal landscape lol. Either way, good luck and I am impressed with the work you must have done planting it!

Shari, I think, if it is in a spot where you can do so, that you can simply cut away the pot, as long as it isn't something that would be too difficult to break or remove, and then pile a large mound of soil over the roots. The most problematic thing would be removing the as much as possible of the bottom of the existing pot, as it would continue to constrict the roots that were growing out therough the hole(s), but the roots that would grow out from the sides of root ball would compensate for them eventually. If the sides of the mound sloped down gradually to meet the existing ground level, you could mulch over the mound and plant other things that would be compatible with the JM. You could also simply dig under the pot to loosen the soil and then lift the pot, roots and all, and either cut the pot off, leaving the root intact, if it is a plastic nursery pot, and plant it or cut off the roots and plant it, if the roots are too big to fit back through the hole or the pot is too solid or of a material that won't cut or you don't want to break. Cutting the roots would set the tree back a bit, but not too horribly if you did it soon - the longer you leave the task, the more the tree will grow and rely on the roots. Since the JM seems to be recovering from the freeze, I would do it soon, before the really hot weather sets in. Pay careful attention to the tree's watering needs, since it will be more stressed from both events than it would from only one of them happening to it. In future, slightly moving plants in pots a couple of times a month stops roots from growing into the soil underneath them. That the roots are doing that can also be a signal that you need to pot-on the plant into a larger pot or into the ground.

Probably won't be viable if the weather is getting cold and trees are going to sleep and also would not suggest for you to trim a tree during this time after weather is below 60F because it's energy gets stored for winter , so when you cutting , you removing it's energy required for the winter .... You want to trim a tree when there is hard growth when weather is cooling going into autumn , so end of summer to limit stress and while it has lots of fowlauge or in spring before new growth buds out . Heating tray and a light should in theory work and has been done with many plants before with great success . Val rie, if you really want to get clippings , why not attempt air rooting the branches you will be cutting off ... success rate is much higher and if you enclose and insulate it properly , you may be able to keep it warmer in there for better rooting while temperature is dropping . In 6 weeks you could have enough root growth to cut it off the tree and maybe finish the rooting process in water if you still need them to grow more. That being said , it is still not the time to be doing that but if you cutting the tree anyway... might aswell. All the best

Agree with "Gall" except that because you had so much damage to this planting I wonder about the wisdom of spending more money on additional attempts with any Japanese maples (or other trees prone to bacterial blight). For instance on one property I have been involved with for some years in addition to attempts with grafted Japanese maple cultivars* failing there has even been a problem with a red maple (Acer rubrum) dying back in the past (we eventually removed it) The site receives air from farther uphill so I assume cold damp air sitting over it in the fall just makes it too ideal for bacterial blight. *Also a poster that used to write at length on another site, had some kind of commercial involvement in the past repeatedly asserted that careless production practices were resulting in grafted Japanese maples being sent out to retailers pre-infected internally with bacterial blight. So that although the plants looked clean at time of purchase by end consumers they went on to blight off visibly afterward, as the blight become more developed