Questions on Chinese Elms

[remist17]

I just received two chinese elms. They are in 4" pots and are about 20" tall. The trunks are the size of a Sharpie marker. Both tress are in full leaf and look good. They are pushing some new growth.

My questions:
--Do I just let these grow wild?
--What size pot (grow pot) would you recomend?
--The new leaves on new growth are larger than the first set of leaves that broke. Should I remove these or just let it go.

 

[rockm]

Depends on what you want to do with them. The more growth you allow, the larger the trunks will get.

The larger leaves are a sign growth is picking up--again, depends on what you want to do with the trees on whether you remove them.

 

[remist17]

the trunk is small. So size needs to be put on. So I can let it grow and then worry about reducing leaf size later?

 

[Redwood Ryan]

the trunk is small. So size needs to be put on. So I can let it grow and then worry about reducing leaf size later?

You betcha.

 

[rockm]

Leaf size is the VERY last thing you do in developing bonsai. If you want to develop the trunk, leaf reduction is a decade or more off. Don't worry about it.

Your priorities for this should be increasing the trunk diameter, putting movement in those straight trunks with trunk chops, primary branch development, secondary branch development, tertiary twig development, THEN leaf reduction.

This entire process can take several decades, or less than five years. It depends on how big you want the final image of the tree. The bigger, the longer it will take

 

[remist17]

last night I saw some of the first leaves of the tree. I looked closer and it seems all the old leaves on old growth have fallen off or fell off when I ran my fingure over them. The only leaves on the tree now are the newest ones.

the trees is in a turface bark mix and a 6" bulb pot. It gets watered as it needs. I fertilezed it with miracle grow twice this season/

What could this be?

 

[jk_lewis]

There's another way to get "fatter" trunks: Cut the tree back. A 20-inch tree with a 1/2 inch trunk is very tall and VERY skinny. Cut it back to 10 inches, and the trunk will look twice as large.

Pictures of your trees will help a lot.

 

[Poink88]

Leaves normally fall yearly but sometimes they hang on a bit longer. When the new leaves come, they usually yellow and fall. Nothing to worry about unless same thing happen to the new leaves.