Boxwood is one of my favorite species to work on. The work is precise, detail oriented, and rewarding… if you are patient.
The work I’m doing today should be done only after the current year’s growth has had time to harden off. My preferred way to determine whether boxwood leaves have hardened off is by feel, but that’s hard to show in a blog post. Slightly easier to show is the color, another indicator of hardening.
The image above shows the light colored leaves of this year’s growth at the tips against much darker leaves from last year’s growth. These leaves are still too tender. It may be another month before I work on that tree. The leaves of various boxwood cultivars may vary in color, but all new growth will come in lighter and brighter, and darken up as it hardens.
The new growth on this branch from a different boxwood has started to darken and is much closer to the color of last year’s growth. This is a sign of hardening off. In addition to the color, I also know the new leaves on this boxwood pushed out a lot earlier in the spring than those on the first tree I showed.
The tree this branch came from is not an impressive bonsai, but it is the one I am working on today.
As you see it above, before the work, the tree has a nicely rounded crown nearly centered over the base, and except for the lower branch on the left the leaves are packed densely and let little light or air circulation through the pads. In today’s work, I have two goals.
First, I want to prune the overall shape to move the apex toward the left. The trunk leans to the left and I’d like to develop a shape that places the apex further in that direction.
Second, I want to open up space between the branches and leaves to allow light and air into the center of the tree and pads. There are a couple of ways I will do that. Let’s look at a branch as an example.
True to form, this branch is dense with branches and leave. The more dramatic step to thinning this out is to select and remove branches. You can start with those that are growing straight up or down, and then you can reduce any place there are three or more branches down to two. With the opposite growth pattern of the boxwood, you will find many sets of three. When a branch needs to come off, select based on movement, taper, or to establish an alternating branch pattern.
Here’s the same branch after removing extra branches.
The next part is a little more subtle but will go a long way to achieve our goal — pluck or cut older leaves, especially those growing from the base of branches. The goal is not to remove all leaves from previous years. I usually leave some of last year’s leaves. Look back and forth between the photo above and below as many times as you need to see and appreciate what has been removed.
Huge difference, right?! Now this branch will get all the light it needs to encourage more growth and back budding. Now all we have to do is apply this approach to every branch on the tree. Easy, right!
This tree is now ready to grow for the rest of the season.
Bonsai Iterate 
Reblogged this on Wolf's Birding and Bonsai Blog.
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