>> What do you call that ? ... the point where the nurseryman took out the leader ?
"The point of decapitation"?
I thought the three-way, open fork was very graceful this year, but might become fragile with age if the "three leaders" get lots longer and heavier. Do you ever have wet snow and then strong winds?
Disclaimer: I know nothing about pruning, and totally defer to Rick R.'s suggestions about your Star Magnolia.
I have a volunteer holly of some sort that would look like a perfect, balanced, upright tree ... if it weren't for a very low branch becoming a secondary trunk. I've thought for three years "I should really prune that off", but I'm not eager to mangle the job. The closest things I have to pruning shears are a bolt cutter and a pair of metal snips ... this young tree deserves better.
I had one "landscape expert" come by to do some simple yard work and let me evaluate his expertise before I asked him to prune anything other than juniper bushes. I had one ancient rhododendron that had 99% died off, except for one small live branch coming out of the seemingly dead wood near ground level. (It was in deep shade, having been overgrown and crowded by several things including an uninteresting evergreen tree).
I had very carefully cut off the dead parts and left 2 feet of deadwood between my last cut and the live branch, so as to avoid risk of harm to the one part of the ex-bush or ex-Rhododendron-tree.
I was pointing RIGHT AT the live branch with its half-dozen or so green leaves, coming out of what looks like dead wood, and asking him how to save it, when he interrupts me by grabbing the remaining dead trunk and wrenching it all out of the ground, live branch and all.
