SO, is it the shade or the hitting of i.e. another tree that makes it grow upward? The tree is going to reach toward the light, wherever the light is. Dense trees will inhibit it, yes. Id like to see pics of the over 40 year Dogwoods kept in check, foxearth. You can see that the foliage on the left side of the tree is wider than the right, which is inhibited by a large juniper (Eastern Red Cedar) to the south of it. The dogwood that I haven't a photo of was inhibited by the presence of a nearby pecan and an evergreen oak and nibbled by cattle on the fence side, so it is not a specimen tree, misshapen and spindly. Limbs reach out to the light, and little sassafrases have come up around it. What if I surround the Dogwood on only TWO out of all four sides with trees - will it grow in very wide as a wedge filling in the two open sides, or will the tree remain uniformly in check keeping only as wide as the two obstructed sides (as per trees) keep it? It will grow toward the light. The sides that are not obstructed reach to the light, is my observation here. Trees on two sides generally result in more vigorous growth on the open sides. Growth will also vary with the position of the sun and the density of the trees. If there are trees on two sides and a tall building shading a third side, that will affect growth as well. The size of my trees is irrelevant because of the difference in climate, soil and growing conditions. My young dogwoods of the same age vary in height by several feet, given different siting conditions. Think about the natural growth of a forest. Dogwoods are lovely understory trees, growing with layered limbs in light high shade and adapting to the site. Planted out in the open, they grow more upright and symmetrical. Nell

Potting up is simply removing the plant from the pot, adding a little fresh soil on the bottom of the new pot, adding the plant, and filling in around the edges with more soil. Potting up, as opposed to repotting, ensures your plant cannot grow to its genetic potential, within the other limiting factors. Repotting includes removing all or nearly all of the soil and pruning roots. All the plants I work with in Moraceae (the Ficus family), which includes many species of Ficus + mulberry get bare-rooted at every repot and a complete change of soil. This guarantees the plant does have the opportunity to grow to its genetic potential within other limiting factors. I'll kind of narrate what I was thinking and describe what I did. Three or four years ago, I conducted a workshop with Ficus b 'Too Little' as the subject material. This tree was exceptionally ugly, and no one wanted it, so I took it home & set it on the grow bench. I cut it back hard as soon as I brought it home to establish some sort of future branch structure. I know I repotted it at least once, because it's in the gritty mix, but I didn't remember anything in particular about the tree because I only looked at the roots once & regarded it as pre-bonsai material. The pots are by Sarah Rayner, and I intended to put the plant in one of them after the work, but it took more than I thought it would to straighten out the root nightmare, so I wanted a larger pot with a greater soil volume to allow the plant a year to recover. The tree before starting: This is how the roots looked after I had removed a small amount of soil from the perimeter: There were a LOT of roots. A closer look, confirming that there is a mess under the soil that will need some work: If the roots are ugly, it won't matter to you because you'll bury them. In bonsai, the root base and exposed roots are a very important part of the composition because they are a very important part of the illusion of great age. This doesn't really tell you much, other than there are a LOT of healthy roots to be dealt with: As noted, I bare root Ficus completely. As I work, I submerge the tree in a tub like this, or I use a spritzer if the tree is too large for that kind of treatment. The important part is to be sure the roots don't dry out as you work on them: Sorry for the detour. I snapped this because it was close to where I was working and thought you might like it: Back to work now. The roots are still a mess, but you can see that I really whacked them hard. I didn't leave much in the way of any large roots. Normally, I don't cut the top back at the same time I work on roots, but the tree had so much foliage that the remaining roots could never support it. This means that the tree would have shed weak branches that might be important to the end composition. By cutting the tree back hard, it should prevent random die-back because I selected the branches to be 'shed'. Treatment this harsh should only be undertaken on healthy trees with plenty of reserve energy. You can see how large some of the roots I removed were: A look at the roots on the other side: The pot I settled on, a Tokonome ceramic training pot, prepared with a screen & a wick (wick, to facilitate drainage until the plant is well established & roots have colonized the entire soil mass). I did too much work on the tree to put it directly into one of the bonsai pots. The larger soil volume of the training pot will help it to recover faster: After potting. I'll cover the scar with waterproof wood glue to keep the cambium from drying & dying back. It's a large scar, but should heal over by the time the tree is fit to show, in 4-5 years: The other side: After the repotting work: The last is after the top is cut back hard and the tree has been secured to the container. I often prefer this method of securing plants instead of wiring them into the pot. It IS important though, to secure the tree so it can't move in relation to the pot. Jostling the tree or the wind, breaks many tiny roots and greatly extends recovery time. The wound has been dressed. The tree actually looks much better than the picture shows because you can't get any perspective on how the branches are positioned. Branching looks messy in the photo, but it doesn't when you're in front of the tree. A few days in the shade & then back on the bench until night temps start dropping below 50*. It comes in at that time after a couple of applications of neem oil about 2 weeks apart: That's about it - can't think of anything else at the moment. I hope it was helpful and hope even more that it bolstered your courage. ;o) Take care. Al

No....that's not what I mean....you have to choose the branches that are behind the growing tip and nurture that and remove the growing tip to a spot that doesn't promote twiggy growth. Look on the link below under heading back. Linda C Here is a link that might be useful: Lesson on pruning

Birdgranny, Hmmm, people never search for this....but here it is again.... One of the easiest ways to provide your photo to be embedded into a post is to upload it onto an image hosting site such as Photobucket, Flickr, etc. That should be pretty straight forward, and the individual sites will give instructions on how to get your photos uploaded to their site when you sign up. Once your picture has been uploaded, find its image location address (URL) by right clicking on the image and copying the image location. Some sites may even provide the appropriate HTML code in a text box below the photo for your convenience. It will be the one that begins with a href=... Let's say, as an example, that the address of the picture you want to post is http://somepicturesite.com/yourpicture.jpg To embed the picture into a post, use the command: img src="http://somepicturesite.com/yourpicture.jpg"> _____________________________________ If your picture is too large to fit nicely into the text page, you can add a width attribute. The command with the width attribute would look something like: img src="http://somepicturesite.com/yourpicture.jpg" width=600> _____________________________________ Another option is to use a text link which might be beneficial to people on slow connections. To do this, use the command: a href="http://somepicturesite.com/yourpicture.jpg">your text goes here/a> _____________________________________ Note that I had to use special characters to get the commands above to show up here without turning into pictures, but you can use them as shown (with the correct image web address, of course).