New boxwood nursery stock: what to do when?

[xamsorko]

Location: San Diego, CA

Hi all! Just got this Japanese boxwood that looked promising from a local store, and was hoping for some wisdom on what I should do with it when, and some general advice/best practice for working with boxwood.

My biggest goal is to keep it alive. It looks pretty root-y (I promise I only pulled it out of the pot for pictures), would I need a repot (or just trim back some roots?) this year before a heavy prune next year, or could I wait until next year or the year after to repot? If repot, our local club suggests Feb-April. I am not set on putting it in a proper bonsai pot yet, especially if I am going to do any heavy cut back this year or next year, but if y'all think it best I would definitely appreciate advice!

For pruning, our local club suggests heavy pruning starting in July, and "prune, thin, and wire" Jan-March. Is there anything I could/should do before July? Any best practices for pruning or hard cutback on boxwoods? This guy is getting pretty tall, imo, and I would like to take a good 8"+ off the total height of the tree and was wondering what the best approach would be to maximize health of the tree and styling options later.

Thanks in advance for any help/advice!

(PS, we do have a club here I can ask for help at, but I get kind of overwhelmed by lots of conflicting verbal advice that is not always solicited, so I am trying here first)

 

[PaulH]

I would repot now into a wood training box. You can do heavy root reduction now as boxwoods recover well and have dense fibrous roots. In summer you can thin out un-needed branches. Older branches on boxwood are too stiff to wire so let new growth extend for a season and then wire movement in while they are still flexible.