I figured I would update with how things have been going, now that overnight temps are dipping near freezing and most of these have been brought in.
I sold a few off last month to help with funding for some indoor lighting, so here's what I have left:
Most of the others got wired pretty early on to avoid a plain upright silhouette, but I'm actually really liking the branch spread and tight foliage on this one, so it was left to just grow apically.
This is the one that started out with brighter long green needles - it's since added a bunch of finer intermediate growth and many of the longer needles have just dried out and fallen off. You can probably see some of the newer growth is getting a lot tighter and more scaley.
I don't love that second bend - it's very sharp - but maybe I'll feel differently in a couple years? A chop was done and new leader chosen around a month and a half ago.
No immediate styling thoughts - just going to let it grow for a while and see if anything piques my fancy - otherwise it'll probably be sold off next year.
I was probably a bit overzealous with early branch selection? But i hope this will grow in to the major one's i've chosen and perhaps I'll grow it as a shohin.
This is how far things got with the basket planting. I ended up pruning out a lot of the growth in between before bringing this in. I knew I'd have less available light indoors and I plan to probably separate them in spring, mainly because they've shown strongest growth in this large container, but could probably gain more vigour individually for a bit. That'll also give me the opportunity to pick and choose which ones I want for my forest when that gets put together.
2 months of growth, from where my thumb is. A couple of the trees in this basket really just poured on the apical growth in very thin, extended spurts, and are only just now putting out some lateral shoots. I'm hoping to encourage tighter growth next year.
Finally, the three questionable trees I discussed earlier that had signs of some sort of gall are still in my possession - they'll be brought in soon, but i don't really have a lot to report other than to say no further odd growth seems apparent so far.