star magnolia question

[tahoe]

am i reading this right
http://www.bonsai4me.com/SpeciesGuide/Magnolia.html
after my mag flowered, i cut it back to the branches i wanted to keep
they have all grown fantastically with a ton of leaves
now, before they put out their buds, i'm to cut the branches back again?
this is how i read the article, and if the tree behaves like last year, it will stop putting out new leaves and will put out a bud very soon

any advice will be appreciated
thanks

 

[daygan]

Sounds like that is about correct - after it's put out this year's growth, you can prune back again to shape. If your not familiar with this tree however (and I'm not, so I can't tell you when it will start producing flower buds), you might want to let it just grow for a while to see how much growth it gets before producing flower buds, and then next year, you'll have a better idea as to about when it stops growing foliage and starts producing flower buds, and therefore exactly when to prune back to shape the tree. Note also that the article says "prune back to shape". If your tree is still in a growing-out stage and not at the point where you're doing refinement, and therefore shaping, you might not need to do this step this year.

I think the reason it's suggested to prune just after foliage growth has stopped and just before flower buds have begun to grow is so that you establish the shape of the tree and then allow the tree to produce a maximum number of flower buds. If you were to prune for shape after it began producing flower buds, next spring's flowering would be compromised.