I got 2 dwarf boxwood from Lowes last night, I popped them out of the 1 gallon pot and the roots were everywhere, and I mean super rootbound. I chopped about half of the roots and dirt from the bottom on both and put them in 5 gallon decorative pots to stay outside all year around. don't know if I will bonsai them in years to come or just keep them containered. Was it too late to repot and chop some root. There is still at least 6 inches of rootball on bottom after chopping.
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I don't know the weather patterns in your area very well, but most shrubs and trees are transplanted in the fall, after they've become dormant.
I do recommend that you prune back the tops of the plants, too, since you pruned the roots. You can remove up to 1/3 of the living tissue. Cutting the roots back by half was a little drastic, I think, and you may experience a little dieback of the branches and leaves, even after pruning the tops. But ... I've pruned roots that hard before, myself, and had the plant survive, so all is not necessarily lost.
I hope your decorative pots have good drainage, because the shrubs will need that. Otherwise the roots will rot and the plants will die. If there are no drainage holes in the decorative containers, then you might want to use them as cache pots. Plant the shrubs in pots that are slightly smaller than the decorative ones, and slip them inslide. That hides the pot the plant is actually growing in. You'll want to remove the plant and its pot from the decorative container whenever you water it, so you can let the excess water drain off. An alternative, if the cache pot is large enough, is to place a thick layer of gravel in the bottom, and set the plant on that, so it never stands in water. I don't like to do that, though, because any mosquito worth her salt will find that water standing in the gravel, and use it as a place to breed. I don't think you want to encourage mosquitoes around your place.
I do recommend that you prune back the tops of the plants, too, since you pruned the roots. You can remove up to 1/3 of the living tissue. Cutting the roots back by half was a little drastic, I think, and you may experience a little dieback of the branches and leaves, even after pruning the tops. But ... I've pruned roots that hard before, myself, and had the plant survive, so all is not necessarily lost.
I hope your decorative pots have good drainage, because the shrubs will need that. Otherwise the roots will rot and the plants will die. If there are no drainage holes in the decorative containers, then you might want to use them as cache pots. Plant the shrubs in pots that are slightly smaller than the decorative ones, and slip them inslide. That hides the pot the plant is actually growing in. You'll want to remove the plant and its pot from the decorative container whenever you water it, so you can let the excess water drain off. An alternative, if the cache pot is large enough, is to place a thick layer of gravel in the bottom, and set the plant on that, so it never stands in water. I don't like to do that, though, because any mosquito worth her salt will find that water standing in the gravel, and use it as a place to breed. I don't think you want to encourage mosquitoes around your place.