Like young children, young trees go through growth spurts when they appear awkward and rangy. Young vigorously growing cultivars can produce whole branches of atypical foliage that is distorted, large and/or, lacking variegation. There is no need to cut this back on most cultivars, since the foliage typical of the cultivar will appear on this wood the next year, and smaller foliage will come with maturity.

Variegations may not manifest on one or even two-year wood on youthful trees. This "breaking" is caused by the juvenility factor. Such rampant growth on older trees indicates over-fertilization. When foliage typical of the species, not your cultivar, appears on an older, slow growing cultivar, it should be removed, as there is the likelihood that it has reverted to the foliage typical of the parent plant. There are only a few cultivars that we know to revert frequently. They are: Butterfly, Kagero, Sagara nishiki, Okushimo, Beni komachi, Variegatum Dissectum, and Hohman's Variegated.