Boxwood Bonsai Progression (2016 – Now)

This is my Boxwood and I will be going through its progression below.

If you want to watch it in video format, you can watch the YouTube playlist below. The videos show the progression every month throughout the year, sort of like a time lapse.

Just be aware that some of my earlier videos are not the best quality, but just like my trees, they slowly improve over time, so stick with them and watch both get a little better as the playlist continues.

Boxwood are slow growing, but they are naturally small,and have many ideal properties that we want in bonsai. You can read more about their suitability in the following article – Is Boxwood  A Good Tree For Bonsai.

2016

In late 2016 I bought some boxwood from a local nursery.

It was 4 small trees in a pot and I just put it in the garden and left it alone and my plan was to sort out in spring, but this progression will just be looking at the one tree.

2017

Once spring arrived I separated the 4 trees out and repotted them into individual pots.

After repotting it was just left to do its own thing for the rest of the year.

2018

In 2018 I left the trees alone and allowed them to grow. I did no work on them.

I also didn’t take any photos during this year.

 2019

In 2019 I had to move house and I could not bring everything with me, so I had to leave 3 of the boxwood behind, which is why we are only looking at one in this progression, as it’s the only one I now own.  

In early spring I pruned it back and wired it. I pulled a lot of the branches down.

This resulted in the tree looking pretty terrible, but you have to see this as a temporary issue. I was trying to get the main structure into a better position, so once the tree grows over the next few years it will look more natural and less like a ladder.

It was then left alone to just grow out for the rest of the year.  

2020

In late winter I pruned it back and removed any unwanted shoots that had grown over the past year.

I then repotted it when the buds started to swell in spring.

I put it in a bonsai pot, which it is of course really not ready for, but it was all I had space for.

This species is also insanely slow to thicken, even in the ground, so really it was never going to get much thicker. I know the pot I’m using is a little too small but for now it will do and probably in the future I might try and put it in a bigger pot again for a few years.

In the summer there was a lot of good growth, so I trimmed the tree back. I was reading other websites and one of them had a drawn diagram, showing the best way to get back budding on this species.

I give this a try to see if could get some more growth on this tree to help fill it in with more foliage (spoiler, it didn’t work).

Then for the rest of 202 it was left to grow.

2021

I started 2021 by doing some later winter pruning. I was expecting some good ramification from the pruning technique I used in summer, but it didn’t work and instead I was left with a lot of long bare areas on the tree.

I pruned back what I could, but this tree was definitely set back by this failed technique, but hopefully I can recover the tree over the next few years and get the foliage to fill in.  

I did not repot the tree this year. It is a small pot, but the tree is slow growing.

In the summer there was some good growth so I pruned it back. This time I used my normal method and just pruned back to two or three sets of leaves. This is slow, but it works.

It was then just left alone for the rest of the year.  

2022

I did not prune in late winter. The tree had grown last season, but the growth was small and not very strong, so I felt it was better to leave it alone than try and cut it back.  

Once the buds started to swell in early spring I did repot the tree. It was not fully root bound, but it was getting very busy in the pot. It would not have been able to go another season without a repot.

I just put it back in the same small red clay pot and I allowed it to recover.

I give the tree a very light pruning in the summer and after this it was left alone for the rest of the year.

Strangely it did change colour as winter approached, which isn’t usual. One branch turned brown and a lot of the leaves got white tips, as if they where variegated. This tree is an evergreen, so this isn’t normally what it does.

2023

Not a lot happened at the start of 2023. The slow season of 2022 meant that it did not need pruned in late winter and I also did not repot it as I don’t think the pot is filled, so it was left alone.

I was also hoping the tree would go back to fully green once it started growing in spring

It grew very slowly, but it did grow, and the leaves did seem to go green again. I also didn’t do any work on it this year. It just sat there and did its thing. This tree really is going to be a long term project.

2024

And this is where we are at with this boxwood.

As you can see it is very slow growing and it really has not come very far in the time I have it. That is okay and I will just keep working away at it and also updating this page.

With time it should start to look better and better.

If you have a boxwood you can read my Boxwood Bonsai Care Guide.