lots of words ... but you dont tell us what your goal is ... and therein lies.. how you would think about pruning it ...

if you want to maintain is smaller.. then you would cut it back ...

if your going for height.. you wouldnt.. and you wouldnt be concerned about its lean ... as that is how RBs grow ...

all that said ... i would let it leaf out this year.. and verify leaf color across the whole plant ... it does not make sense to me.. presuming it is a grafted plant.. that you would have reversion problems that high in the tree ... if you do.. it is probably an issue to discuss with the nursery ...

one thing for sure... there is never a hurry with pruning trees.. it can always be done later .. or next year ... but in the alternative.. you can glue mistakes back on ...

lets see some pix after leaf out ... and where are you.. do RB thrive there???

ken

I would be curious the new vs old growth colors on rising sun. Some of my special cultivars have foliage which comes out red or yellow then turns more species like.

Also, my main species redbuds grow in all sorts of cool unusual shapes. Maybe it is a fightable condition but straight and single leader like a bald cypress is not their natural state in my yard.

I am curious, is this a grafted tree? The rootstock could have taken over and that would explain the green. It does look rather oddly shaped. Also, remove the stake.

This is pretty typical of Cercis (redbud) and indeed of many trees. They are planted young, they sit and develop a root system for a couple of years, and then put out vegetative growth. It is obviously not the rootstock or a reversion as it is the branch that depicts the characteristics of the cultivar.

Typically, redbuds are pruned in late spring after flowering. In this case the tree is so small that a floriferous display is not likely anyway, but I would wait until the tree leafs out and perhaps gives you some idea of what its intentions are. I probably wouldn't prune it at all.

Redbuds have ungainly (one might even say unfortunate) branching structure, and your primary pruning task over time is going to be eliminating crossing branches. Once the nursery opens in the spring you might also go back there and see if anyone has any thoughts.

I think that it will be fine.

Thanks! My inclination has been to leave it alone but I just wasn't sure.

I doubt this is helpful to you because you probably want the flowers, but I have seen some of the colored-foliage redbud cultivars pollarded in formal landscapes to encourage new growth and more colorful foliage. I certainly wouldn't do this because I love the flowers, but it has it's place. I planted a redbud last year and after it grows for 2-3 more years I am thinking about trying tip pruning and see how it responds. I wouldn't recommend tip pruning to you, because I haven't tried it yet. Just some more of my odd ideas.

In my wildest dreams I cannot imagine pollarding a redbud.

Your dreams are not wild enough :-)

That's what I was going for!

My nursery has one that i took pictures of last summer or summer 2015 i think. It is soo pretty. I will try to find pics later and upload them.

tlbean, would it be correct to say the new growth is the bright color and the older growth is more traditional green?

Yes, Toronado.

Yes, that is correct.

Here are pics of the one at my local garden center.

Bonnie, the new growth is the brightest color. That is why last summer only the one oddly fast growing branch was bright.

I have a number of redbuds but haven't really paid THAT much attention to their growth spurts. I bet they all show "rising sun" colors in the spring and it is a bit more subdued later in the year.