Thanks to the advice of coppice, I looked in Craigslist and found
someone giving away 5 cedar trees. I called and she said they are not
the arbor vida kind, she doesn't know which kind, but they are similar
to her Pencil Cedar she has. She said they are 5-6 ft and 10 yrs old. I
called a nursery that is not too far from me that has Bonsai experience
and asked if I should get them and she said yes, I definitely should, I
could use them for practice. She cautioned that the leaves/needles may
be too big for Bonsai but they would be excellent practice for pruning
them down into Bonsai. What do you all think? I'm excited. I will be
getting them on Saturday. The current owner of the trees says they do
very well in pots too. She was excited when I told her what I wanted
them for. Does anyone have any idea what type of cedar they could be if
they are only 5-6ft tall at 10 yrs old? I tried to look it up online,
but found cedars that get huge in short amounts of time, but not any
that describes these.

Also, when I get them I plan on cutting
them down so what would be a good size? 3 ft? 2 ft? Bigger? Should I
cut the roots down, cutting off the larger and leaving the smaller? I
imagine I'll still need a rather big pot, do you slowly reduce the pot
size?

I have looked up different progressions for this but they
didn't explain some of these things. I would really appreciate any
information anyone can share.

Nicole