Mimosa can refer to a couple of different plants. Is it Albizia julibrissen you have? I have experience with this tree. I have no experience with Calliandra. I grow Albizia in containers. It grows fast, and needs top and root pruning to keep it containerized. The compound leaves are quite large, and reportedly do not reduce very well, making it unsuitable for small bonsai. I have seen some nice Albizia bonsai, though, so it can be done. What you need to understand before you begin bonsai; small-trunked bonsai do not become thick-trunked bonsai. Before you can start to train your tree as a bonsai, you need to have the thick trunk first. So, you will need to grow your tree in the ground (for fastest growth) or in a container (slower growth) in order to develop a thick trunk. Only then will you begin training. Developing the thick trunk will take some years. This quote from bonsai4me.com: "A common misconception amongst newcomers to the art of bonsai is that trees (bonsai) with large, thick trunks must have had decades of training to become the size they are and that a thin-trunked seedling will one day acquire a thick mature trunk even though it is planted in a bonsai pot. Unfortunately, once a tree is growing in the confines of a small pot, with its roots restricted and upper growth regularly pruned, the trunk and branches of the tree will only thicken very slowly. Large bonsai with thick trunks are nearly always developed in the ground prior to being planted into a pot; some are purposely field grown, some are collected mature trees." Do a lot of research, and you may find you would be better off finding a bigger tree to begin with. Cheers!

I would love to try your;; gazanias pyracantha I have to trade;; arctotis venusta-african blue daisy painted daisy tassel flower shoo-fly-tons lavender datura- smells great lavender poppy sweet william-tall love lies bleeding elephant head- mine is 7' tall let me know if you would like to trade

This really is a fun thread...I hope it "lives" for awhile longer with more replies. I don't know about everyone else, but I thought about my best performers, and then "tossed" some away becaused my 6-plant garden would be too shrubby, or too viney, etc., so I tried to get some different types of plants (tree, shrub, "vine", etc) and then pick a winner for each one. It's an interesting challenge to imagine gardening with just these six plants. Thanks for tallying up the votes, Sam. Take care, Grant

In their native range, these plants are used to growing in nutrient deficient soil, so I would not fertilize. They can be pruned using hand pruners; a light staggered prune is probably best if you do. In some years, and locations, established plants have come back from roots after an unusually hard freeze--but it probably took some time to regain form. It is difficult to make specific pruning recommendations without seeing a photo of the plant in question. These plants often look a bit scraggly to me--maybe due to the small size of the foliage vs. stems. I have not seen many that were happy enough to be very bushy, even though they produced plenty of flowers.