How to fix my Fukien tea

[Drjd]

Hello everyone, I hope you had an excellent Thanksgiving. About a month ago I trimmed a new Fukien tea tree I purchased from a local nursery. I don’t know what I was thinking and I removed to many branches from the top section leaving a very long area without branches. I was hoping someone with more experience could guide me through the best (or maybe more then one way) to correct the mistake. The two things I am considering are replanting the tree in a growing pot and just letting it grow wild, hopefully a bud will start in the section that I messed up. The other thought I had was to cut off the upper section of the tree that is missing branches and let a new main branch grow.
I appreciate everyone’s help and time!

 

[Bonsai Nut]

Where do you live? Aside from being dramatically pruned the tree looks healthy enough. I would let it grow - making sure to wire all the new growth before it hardens.

Right now the tree is growing wild, without a real design vision. In the future, print out a picture of a tree you are trying to emulate, or else sketch a design and keep it by you when you work on your tree. It is easy to prune off too much if you just dive into a tree and start cutting... without having a clear goal in mind.

 

[Drjd]

Where do you live? Aside from being dramatically pruned the tree looks healthy enough. I would let it grow - making sure to wire all the new growth before it hardens.

Right now the tree is growing wild, without a real design vision. In the future, print out a picture of a tree you are trying to emulate, or else sketch a design and keep it by you when you work on your tree. It is easy to prune off too much if you just dive into a tree and start cutting... without having a clear goal in mind.

Thank you! I will do exactly this.

 

[Drjd]

Where do you live? Aside from being dramatically pruned the tree looks healthy enough. I would let it grow - making sure to wire all the new growth before it hardens.

Right now the tree is growing wild, without a real design vision. In the future, print out a picture of a tree you are trying to emulate, or else sketch a design and keep it by you when you work on your tree. It is easy to prune off too much if you just dive into a tree and start cutting... without having a clear goal in mind.

My apologies, I forgot to answer your first question. I live in Southwest Florida. It is still consistently above 80 degrees during the day here so my plants are still growing very well. I am not sure if this is a good thing or bad, as they are not going through a winter rest period. Again since I am new to Bonsai and I live in a very warm climate I am learning what the growth will look like during the winter.

 

[Bonsai Nut]

I live in Southwest Florida. It is still consistently above 80 degrees during the day here so my plants are still growing very well.

Since you are in USDA Zone 10a (or something like it), your tropical trees will usually pause in their growth during the winter. I say "usually" because if you prune them hard going into the winter, they will often respond with a flush of new growth and skip winter altogether. So they will not experience a winter dormancy in the way that a deciduous tree does. I lived for 20+ years in zone 10a, and if I pruned a deciduous tree hard going into winter, I could sometimes even get a deciduous tree to skip winter - while a clone of the same tree sitting on the bench right next to it that I didn't prune would drop its leaves like normal and go into a short dormancy. It is best, however, if you work with a tree's natural cycle, and not against it. With a Fukien Tea it is best to prune in the early spring and late summer (after the worst of the summer heat has passed) because you are pruning before their growth cycle, and not after it.

Don't sweat it - a Fukien Tea will do fine as long as you keep it above freezing and humid.

 

[Drjd]

Since you are in USDA Zone 10a (or something like it), your tropical trees will usually pause in their growth during the winter. I say "usually" because if you prune them hard going into the winter, they will often respond with a flush of new growth and skip winter altogether. So they will not experience a winter dormancy in the way that a deciduous tree does. I lived for 20+ years in zone 10a, and if I pruned a deciduous tree hard going into winter, I could sometimes even get a deciduous tree to skip winter - while a clone of the same tree sitting on the bench right next to it that I didn't prune would drop its leaves like normal and go into a short dormancy. It is best, however, if you work with a tree's natural cycle, and not against it. With a Fukien Tea it is best to prune in the early spring and late summer (after the worst of the summer heat has passed) because you are pruning before their growth cycle, and not after it.

Don't sweat it - a Fukien Tea will do fine as long as you keep it above freezing and humid.

Awesome! I should have had a plan going in. It was one of my first bonsai and I got a little excited. I do think they are slowing down for sure, but maybe the pruning I did will keep it growing more than my others through winter. Either way looking this mistake is a reminder to do better next time haha.