I will be worse than fragile if you don't let it be a tree, and a maple at that, by putting it OUTside for life where it belongs. Bring it inside and you'll kill it. Trees have survived forever out there, maples are very cold hardy and it's summer now anyhow. If you want it to live, put it back in the ground til next spring and then take it up in the proper way (do you know how to do it for bonsai?) and put it in a training box - or else do that right now - don't even wait a week - and keep it OUTside for life. It's probably best to keep it in light shade this season, but not the 'dark' by any means, and don't water it to death, just let nature do its thing. All trees are tiny when young, but in fact yours is not young, small branches or not, so don't treat it like some preemie in a lab, let it be a tree.

If you don't want to repaint your box a lighter color, start over from the inside. Empty the box. Line with styrofoam, but do not cover the drain holes. Fill with good potting mix 1/3-1/2 full. Sprinkle lightly with slow release container formula fertilizing granules. Liberally add water-grabbing crystals. Moisten soil. Soak plants 10-20 minutes and plant as usual. Water thoroughly. Cover topsoil with dry sphagnum moss (this will provide shade for the base of the plants and suppress water evaporation, as well as elevate vines away from the hot surface of the container) Hand-water daily early to mid-morning until new growth appears, then water 2-4 times a week. It is a good idea to remove all flowers before planting to encourage root growth. Don't worry, you'll have the flowers back in abundance in no time. I have 2 midnight blue boxes and have kept asparagus fern, marigolds, english ivy, geraniums,moss rose and coleus thriving down here in central Florida. Good luck!

" I wonder how one would do in pure muck soil where taxodium grow, if inland enough where saltwater flooding isn't a problem." Not well! It would last about a week in summer before the root rots would take it out! In the rest of the southeast where they do grow, they definitely only grow on well drained soils. I have had one die from root rot. In spite of being hexaploid, they are not invincible. FWIW, there's a 'trick' about the PNW - coastal CA climate. I saw rhododendrons almost in the bottom of swales at the old Greer Gardens in Eugene, OR.* You would NEVER see them growing somewhere like that in PA, NJ, or MD. But...the time plants like rhodies and redwood are most susceptible to root rot organisms is in the summer. That's when most of those disease organisms grow best...at temps >= 15C. I see redwoods in the native environs growing in soil that appears year round damp, but guess what? It's only going to be inundated with water, during California's wet winters! Likewise with the rhodies that would experience wet (but not underwater, mind you) soil conditions at Greer...only in winter! There's just NO WAY for Eugene to have 3" of hot wet rain in late July, on a single day, as we can have! (or, now that I think about it, at Sonoma Horticultural Nursery, which is called something else these days, the same is true. Although Polo did put some rhodies on the lowest plains of his property in impromptu little raised beds. That might be necessary because he was so mild in winter, root rot organisms could still grow well during the wet season.) Now that a nursery has supposedly grafted Sequoia onto Metasequoia, maybe people in the southeast can plant them in poorly drained soils with abandon. We'll see. * - although, TBH, it wasn't much to see and not even as nice as the peak of NJ Rarefind around the time Hank died in 2009, I'm glad I got to see it in 2011 and meet the famous Mr. Greer. Greer might have had rarer, more tender cultivars in zone 8a, but Rarefind had just more plants, and better displayed, period, in their 6b garden.

I see that some people in this thread mentioned using Pentas for a Cottagey feel in a Florida garden, but I think one key to getting Pentas to work is to get the non-dwarfed varieties. As England's Alan Titchmarsh mentioned in one of his specials, "A Cottage Garden should be billowing, blousy and a bubbling froth of flowers." You don't get this from the dwarfed varieties foud in the big box stores. You need the 3-4 ft vaieties which I mostly see at plant fairs and sales. The Lake County demonstration gardens, Discovery Gardens, has an example Cottage Garden section. I will have to swing down there again for some pictures and names, but the stuff they had planted you just don't find at your average nursery, much less the big box stores.