Hi,

We live in the Bay Area and have two Japanese maple trees: see attached photos.
We would like to know:

1) Is now is the right time to prune them (they started losing their leaves – the current temperature is between 34F at night and 60F during the day)?
2) How much should we trim them? Any advice on how to do it?

Phil

If you want to take off whole branches to raise it off the ground a little, yes do it. If you want to take a smaller branch all the way back to a larger branch, do it. But if you want to give it a general haircut, don't. Japanese Maples respond to that sort of pruning by growing little brushy ends - the grace and beauty of the branch structure will be lost forever. Both your trees are beautiful.

Thank you Daisy!