I have left a note about my serissa tree. I have also just bought off eBay a year old silver birch tree. It's only a thin little trunk with a few branches and quite a lot of leaves. I need to know when I can start training it into shape. It's about 8 inches tall with the first branch about 5 inches from the bottom. There are 4 branches in total. How old do they have to be before I can start doing anything to it? The person I bought it off told me to keep pinching off the top buds to make it grow more bushy. Can anyone tell me what's the best thing to do for it?