Pittosporum Tobira - Foliage removal post collection ?

[Grego83]

I collected this Pittosporum Tobira aka Japanese Cheesewood aka mock orange yesterday. Has anyone collected one of these before? It had been growing in my parents landscape for approximately 25 years, but it was going to be removed, so I dug it up. The roots were shallow and radiated outwards. I had to cut them back to fit in the anderson flat - there were some fine feeder roots close to the trunk which I exposed just a bit of. Filled with mostly pumice, some sphagnum moss and bark. I realized as I was digging it up LOTS of aphids, so I sprayed it with malathion last night.

This had been cut back hard last fall from a bush for most of its life, so I got to see the trunk & base. It pushed a lot of new growth since then and is now bushed out again. Obviously I am going to remove 90% of the foliage at some point to expose the trunk and base.

My question is ... should I remove any foliage now from this newly collected evergreen shrub - there is a ton of it - or leave the foliage and let the tree be to correct the balance?

Any help is much appreciated,
Greg

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

I have never worked with this species, I don't know.

Sometimes defoliating an evergreen broadleaf shrub is what is done at repotting. I've heard it done with Ugni and Luma, and occasionally Ficus but that is it.