This 'Atro. dissectum' has undergone many bad treatments. The latter : because of my back problems, I couldn't repot it, it was too heavy. I finally managed to remove it from its pot. The roots had formed a kind of cork in the drainage holes. When I tilted the pot, about 2 liters of water ran down. I sawed off a couple of centimetres at the base, when a tree is healthy (I thought it was the case), it's not a problem. But after a few weeks, as my other maples had leafed out, no sign of recovering. So I pruned it back to the trunk, while waiting to throw it away. As usual, I procrastinated. And today, oh my! I saw it is backbudding to half the trunk! I'll see if it develops branches, then I'll prune the stubs back. This one is a survivor : it already survived some damage in the bark (too lazy to find the original thread again). Fingers crossed...
