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Hi. I have 2 sweet gum bonsai that I have grown from seed. They are about 10 weeks old. I can’t find any advice about when I should start trimming them. I am going to reply one of them soon as they look crowded in my pot. Can any one help me please. I will attach a photo.

keeping it short,
these are seedlings not bonsai.
you wont be doing anything for the next say 3-5 years as you will just work on keeping them healthy and growing.

Thank you. So I literally don’t touch them at all for a few years? Brilliant. Total novice here.

Hoare wrote: Thank you. So I literally don’t touch them at all for a few years? Brilliant. Total novice here.

Correct. Lots of people think you grow bonsai by growing young plants in bonsai pots. That is not how it works.
For liquidambar, you need a large size bonsai. Ideally, you'd plant them in the garden, forget them for a few years, and start studying.

The most trees sprouting in the yard here are pines, which is normal for the Southeast US. Second most is Sweet Gum. I have dug up year old trees more than once and they always live for a year, die way back, live another year, and then die over the winter. I may try again, but it will be a much older tree with a more established root system, and I am going to cut around the base of the root ball to force a compact root system, just like the book says.

Seedlings? I would guess my issues in the past have been roots getting too cold too fast in what we all winter around here - one day way above freezing, then 5 degrees below, then way above. Next time I will do something about winter protection. If that is correct, you need to protect the seedlings' root systems from sudden changes in temperature.

There are sweet gum trees here dropping balls all over the ground, and fewer than a dozen trees shorter than a meter. That may be an indication that the trees have a low survival rate.