Proseph
Newly Registered
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon May 19, 2014 12:41 pm

Nursery Boxwood

So I picked up this boxwood in a 7 gal plastic container today.

One of the workers had taken the older boxwood and started to turn it into a bonsai already. He had the plant out of the soil and was looking at the roots.

Anyway long story short I bought it for about 25 bucks and took it home :)

Since the "tree" (its more of a shrub right now) was already out of the soil, I figured I might as well clean the soil out from the root ball, and see what I am working with.

Here is what I have...

A couple questions. How much can I cut off the top? I want to do a heavy pruning and shorten this tree to 1/2 or 2/3 its current height.

Secondly, due to how dense the tree is, a lot of the inner branches and lower branches have not leafy growth. After a heavy pruning will the boxwood produce new buds off of hardened bark?

Lastly, can I safely cut back a majority of the large roots and just save the main thin roots?

I am quite new to bonsai and this is my first boxwood so any insight is welcomed.


Joe
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tomc
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 2661
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2011 2:52 am
Location: SE-OH USA Zone 6-A

Welcome, Proseph.

Boxwood can be styled as oak trees. One caution is you must leave one live leaf at the terminal end of each branch. No live leaf=dead branch.

So don't be too put out if your pruning this year is less than you might hope for. If you keep your tree alive you get another at-bat spring of 2016.

"Soil" for trees in tiny pots looks like a bag of gravel with some bark mulch drug through it. It is not pro-mix or peat moss-loess fine particle soils. They will smother and drown your tree. If you only have one tree cactus mix from a big-box store will do.

Now to my old eye-bones that looks rather like two trees planted too close together. Read up on mother-daughter trees, and or dividing them. I expect you will end up with one or t'other from this tree.

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Gnome
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 5122
Joined: Wed Jul 05, 2006 12:17 am
Location: Western PA USDA Zone 6A

Proseph,

Agree with Tom, don't do too much this year other than get it established & healthy. Yes, it should back-bud on older wood but the roots need a chance to recover some mass first.



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