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Hi all,

I have a quick question regarding my bonsai care, as I believe I might have made a mistake. I live in an apartment and have two very different bonsai trees – a redbud and a ligustrum. The ligustrum has small leaves, making it easy to maintain, but the redbud has larger leaves, and I want it to maintain its size. However, this presents a challenge in my apartment.

During the spring of 2023, when both bonsai were starting to grow, I tried a technique. When one of the branches on the redbud reached a desirable length, I thought that by simply cutting the new leaf growing at the end of the branch, I could halt its growth, and the bonsai would focus on other areas. I applied this method to five out of the six branches. However, after cutting those leaves, the rest of the bonsai didn't show any additional growth. It didn't produce new branches either. It simply retained the leaves it had and remained unchanged until now, when it's hopefully going to start shedding leaves soon.

Did I do something wrong? The bonsai looks very healthy, but it just didn't grow at all.

I heard about the technique where you sacrifice a branch, but I don't have space for it.
Any other ideas?

Thanks guys!

The sacrifice branch technique is for creating thickness and taper on the trunk in early development phase. Leaf size reduction is a techniques used in the last refinement phase, just before it is put in a show.

Do you mind sharing a photo on your tree so we can suggest what is best techniques to use in the current phase?

Sure! I'll upload a picture this evening.

I guess that would be a good technique to follow for my redbud, as he is quite young (3.5 years) and looks quite skinny.

I would just promote as much growth as possible at this stage. As much foliage as possible and the biggest pot possible. The only pruning I would do is to remove handle bar branches, but not until there are the first sign of swelling on the trunk. Furthermore, I would not wire it that high up, as in my head that part of the trunk is not a part of the final design anyway. As space is limited, I would treat it as sacrificial branch as long as space permits and remove it when it does no longer fit the growing area.

Redbud has very big leafs and needs to grow a lot of trunk before the next stage of development.

But, I must admit. I only tried this species one time and it did not make it throe my cold winter. So not much first hand information really.

Asking the experienced members, but am I wrong these trees should not be kept inside?

Looking back at old threads on this tree I can just conclude that OP has been told that it should not be in livingroom conditions a few times. The tree is 3,5 years and OP sais that it is kept in a cold room and that it has gone dormant in winter. I don't know how cold it is, but judging from the photo it seems like the tree is still fairly healthy. We often confuse indoors with livingroom conditions. Indoors is normally not a problem, it is all about the conditions one can provide for the tree.

I keep most of my trees in a greenhouse part or all of the year, technically indoors. We tell people to put their trees in a shed if they experience deep frost. Also technically indoors.

But, yes. I think the tree would develop faster if kept outdoors at least in summer.

My redbud did not survive beeing pot buried in the greenhouse growing bed a mild winter here in west Sweden. Similar to usda zone 7.

Thanks Tropfrog! Much appreciated.
3.5 years ago someone gave me a box with 5 different bonsai to grow, and that's how I ended up with growing a Redbud from seeds. I have to confirm that is not the easiest bonsai to grow, but I guess he is doing well.
We live in a 2nd floor flat, so no outdoors here, but I try to give him "cold" conditions in winter. The tree stays in the spare room in winter where the heating is very low and the room temperature isn't warm. The temperature drops from 25 degrees in summer to maybe 10 in winter, making a big change for the tree and making him go dormant. He is still quite green as who would have thought that in October in the UK we would be in 20 degrees! I guess we'll have a very chilly winter afterwards.

The idea was to keep him alive for the next two years as we are thinking of moving, but until then he just needs to keep going.

Winter is back, so my question now is: Should I prune him while he is dormant so he starts growing back in spring? Which ones are the handle bar branches? I don't think it has any that emerge opposite at the moment.

Big pruning is normally done in late winter or early spring. Just when the buds is starting to swell. Timing may differ for redbuds, not much information on them as bonsai awailable.

But as said. I would not prune anything but handle bar braches just before they gets to be a problem. I cannot see any on your photo. But big leafs are in the way to see how trunk and branches grow.

Tropfrog wrote:

But, yes. I think the tree would develop faster if kept outdoors at least in summer.

I accidentally did an experiment along these lines. There were quite a few maple seedlings in the front yard, which means no sun at all. I put a lot of them in pots and moved to the backyard with the bonsais, and they all grew about three times as tall and at least twice as thick as the ones in front.

So, sunlight is the answer. I don't know what frequencies a window filters out. I know that most windows have some kind of UV filter, and some are not glass but plastic of some kind, and who knows what they do?

I think indoors may have implications with number of hours of light. I know that trees in urban areas near street lights have problems, and the deduction is that they need darkness. What the implications are for incandescent lights (are there any of those left) or other indoors light sources are I don't know.

Trees evolved outdoors. I feel safer leaving them there.