Newbie with nursery stock Acer palmatum

Thanks, Mike, it did. I think returning to the plan i had yesterday, of placing it in the landscape and eventually collecting a cutting or air layering a branch just for kicks, while learning technique on the azalea it will displace, is probably the best way to proceed with this tree. Certainly the nursery I got this tree from had others of the same variety, and now I know to watch out for graft scars, so it's possible I may be able to get one with a cleaner union later on.

And, of course, I'll revive this thread in a couple of days with some close-up pictures to see if that changes anyone's opinions.

i really wouldnt even bother with trying to take cuttings...if this variety was able to be struck readily from cuttings, that would be how they chose to propagate it rather than having to incur the cost of raising an entirely seperate tree to use as root stock for this variety...trust me, if the nursery could just take cuttings and save a ton of time and money propagating it that way, they would already be doing it...even the green maples arent the easiest to propagate from cuttings, so i can pretty much pomise you trying to take cuttings from this variety will be a large waste of time...

if you are going to end up chopping the top or whatever anyway, i would suggest doing what Rick said and rying air-layering a branch and growing that for a couple seasons...