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
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.
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.