Pictures would help a lot; include the whole plant and one of the pot and soil. What did you do when you put it in the 17 inch pot? Put the existing rootball in the pot and surround it with fresh soil or remove the old soil and replace it? What kind of soil was it in and what kind of fresh soil was it? Was it rootbound? It's possible the new pot is too big, making the soil stay very wet for too long, causing roots to suffocate for lack of air to pull oxygen from. If so, the easiest remedy would be to put it back in the old pot and wait until June to repot in a faster draining highly aerated soil that would be harder to overwater. Meanwhile, check out the posts upthread about watering, using a dowel to check soil moisture, and the kinds of soil and light conditions lyratas do best in, and start to water only when the soil at the bottom is the pot is dry. Lenore

Let's use your second picture, the closeup, for this discussion. The larger branch that sticks up from the dominant trunk has to go, so cut it off flush with the trunk with a fine saw, then paint the wound carefully with waterproof wood glue. The glue seals the wood, prevents it from drying, prevents a large scar that takes a long time to heal, and helps the callus tissue that forms at the edge of the wound to roll over the wound without resistance. As you follow the trunk line up, you come to another branch that sticks up, then has a branch that moves off to the right. That stays, but the little stub that sticks up gets the same treatment I described for the first upright branch off the trunk. The branch underneath the higher branch that moves to the right and looks like a continuation of the main trunk line and appears parallel to the upper branch should be removed. Your trunk will move to the right, then move upward a short distance, then continue to the right. That little 'crook in the trunk line adds interest. The reason the lower branch should be moved is, it competes with your eye as the apex. Even though the trunk line your keeping is higher than the branch, it still confuses your eye. All the branches on the subordinate trunk should move to the right, but no branch should be directly above another. The lowest branch should move right and toward you. The next should move right and be in line with the trunk, the third branch should move right and toward the back. There should be no branches on the dominant trunk that move to the right. Coming off the dominant trunk, you should have 3-4 branches arranged alternately that move to the left. These should be longer branches to offer visual balance (so the tree doesn't look like it's going to fall over to the right). There is a branch that is growing off the really short stub that sticks up where the dominant trunk line makes a jog. It appears to be growing to the left. That is a key branch. Train it so it grows toward the front and moves left. No branches should grow directly toward the front of the composition, so they look like they want to poke you in the eye. Did you get all that? FWIW, I'm a bonsai judge, and 30 years of practice at bonsai allows me to see the tree in the tree. It also allows me to see problems and offer plans that allow the grower to work around the problems or in some cases turn them into a feature. Comments? Al

Roots were kept moist throughout. Cleared off every bit of soil we could and untangled roots, then removed lower portion. I did recognize that it was more like regular soil and have been letting it dry fully (2.5 weeks before 2nd watering). I check by digging my finger in as low as I can. For the first year I was watering every 2-3 weeks. I would not be surprised to hear that I overpotted. The pot used to contain the plastic one that the tree came in for the first year, and I moved into the containing pot instead when repotting since the plastic one was a mess and cracking.

To be honest, that lyrata is dying. Top section already wilted. Root pruning should be followed with reducing the leaves so evaporation rate and remaining roots ability to absorb water still in balance. The Audrey condition look better. It reduce its older leaves on its own without pruning.