Awesome plants! Thanks for sharing! :)

Hi, Jon. They look nice and healthy, so congratulations on the good care you've been giving them; but, for the life of me I can't see where they've been pruned?

You might consider that: The top of the F retusa would benefit from being restrained and thinned; and, deciding which of the 3 co-dominant branches/stems on the F benjamina 'Too Little' is going to be the leader and pruning the others back hard or removing them and allowing other sacrifice branches to take over for the ones you remove would also serve the tree well.

Al

Thanks Al,

They had gotten quite full over summer - I actually trimmed probably at least 30% off of the F. Macrocarpa Retusa, the scherflerra, and the Crosby Compact Jade. The Too Little only got a trim, but I haven't even done selective pruning on that yet - your definitely right, I need to sort out the trunks. My initial plan was to wire some of the competing trunks down as secondaries. I might put it in a bigger pot - while it looked very healthy this summer, it didn't grow much.

Last spring (2017), I had hard-pruned the Macrocarpa Retusa down to the trunk. I need to recreate a new canopy, but I'm imagining the tree a bit taller. I'm trying to grow that main upright leader slowly while letting the lower branches gain some more girth. Not sure if this approach makes sense, but it's what I have in my mind. As you mention, I will definitely need to pick some of the branches to keep and some are only sacrifice branches that will be removed. The thicker ones on the left and right, I imagine them being branches but not part of the final canopy, which I don't think is there yet. Jerry M. suggested removing the bottom left branch or at least the aerial roots (if I recall correctly), which I can't yet bring myself to do! It has a shoot above the first aerial root that could develop into a new pad if I did cut it way back.

Very nice. I am jealous of your pots also.