AusBonsai

Japanese Box
Height about 75 cm
Bought from a comercial nursery
Cost - $25.00

I finally got an opportunity to do some work on this tree today. I cut off all the unwanted bits and wired into position the branches that were retained. The plan is to fertilize and water, and hopefully trim the branches into pads.
More up-dates soon.

Looking good mate, gee it lost some weight.

Mick

Thanks Mick, I have just reduced the height by about 55cm so it is now on its way to becoming a shohin.

Watto, like your thinking, however, looking at your buxus it looks more like a Japanese box to me.

Buxus microphylla (Japanese box) Buxus sempervirens (English box) cheers chris

Chris,
I had another look this morning and you are correct. I hope one of the mods reads this and amends it for me? I bought this with another the same at a nursery and they were in the English Box section - I should have checked better.
Any way it's now on its way to becoming a shohin.
Thanks for the advice.
Watto

Firstly thanks to the Mods for fixing my error.
Now this tree has really grown quite significantly since the last post. I thought that box grew slowly? Anyway I am pleased with the progress to date, the foliage pads are developing well and the trunk it now taking on the mature look - it could be that it is now more exposed to the sun and has "barked up"?
A bit more trimming and some directing for the secondary branches should improve this tree.

I wanted to reduce some of the roots on this tree so on a nice cool wet day (any day this summer fits that description) I thought I would put it into a bonsai pot for the first time. However there would have been too much root removal and this may have compromised the health of the tree so I put it into a wooden box with the view of potting onto a bonsai training pot in late spring.
Anyway, here is the lates photo. You will notice the growth which has been good.

I hard pruned this tree in March (but forgot to take photos) with the thought that it would continue with the rapid growth that it had over the previous few months, but alas that did not happen. Maybe you shouldn't hard prune box in March? This is the only box bonsai I have so this is a learning experience for me.
Anyway the fertilizer program does appear to have brightened up the leaves and it does look healthy. It still retains the yellowish top leaves typical of Japanese Box and the bark is continuing to age.
Can't wait to get it into a real pot.

Edited: from the progression it seems clear that the roots left exposed would hardened off and develop into toughened exposed root trunk like structure?

Question that still stands: is now an appropriate time to bare root these trees and expose roots to harden off?

Also if this exposure was done in stages, would you achieve a progressive greater strength of roots higher up?

I bought 3 pot bound Japanese Boxes last year from the bargain bin of my local nursery. They now look very extremely healthy in their poly boxes, and I have no idea what to do with them. Though if I can get a look at their roots and raise them I might have some ideas…

Cheers
Elmo

Hi Elmo,
I didn't deliberately expose the roots, it just happened over time as I watered it. This tree was originally in a very large black plastic pot so I am reducing the root mass in stages.
I don't know a real lot about box, but I would imagine that spring would be a better time to start the process of exposing roots.
Cheers
Watto

Hi Watto,

I was a bit curious about the roots also. Mainly in the drastic change seen from your January pic to the Feb one, from no roots visible to a mass. At first I thought the Feb pic just showed the roots for pictorial purposes before potting, with the shown roots being all that there was on the tree.

However, seeing the May image and all the same roots exposed makes it seem it was actually potted this high back in Feb. Is this the case (or did it expose all those roots due to watering whilst in the black pot), and are you planning on potting it (when it's ready) in a bonsai pot at the same height, with the same amounts of roots visible?

P.S. I like the planting angle and initial branch structure you have chosen.

Pat - I plan to cut off those exposed roots and use the ones under what we can now see. The planting will be a standard look for want of better terminology.

Time for an up-date on this box. In the last few days it has put on some new growth, the typical yellow/green foliage of this species and is still very healthy and going along.
The new growth does appear a bit early as we have had a large number of big frosts this year (minus 6, minus 7 and even minus 8) but the days have been OK.
The pads are coming along and the bark is continueing to look "aged" so I am keen to get it into a real pot soon.

That's starting to look real nice there Watto. What pot do you have in mind for it????

There was an add in the local paper a while back for a large english box hedge to be removed free for who ever removes it. It was gone already when I rang up. Pity cause the guy said the trunks were around 3-4 cm so could have been good to play with. Now seeing what you've done I really wish I had been able to get them.

Josh