Hi,

Completely new to bonsai (2 months). Picking it up as a hobby to get something to relax doing and to teach myself some patience (in an otherwise fairly hectic life).

I have acquired two bonsai (a Ficus Ginseng and Serissa) based on the idea that they would more likely survive my "not knowing what I'm doing"-phase.

I have pruned the Serissa into the shape seen in the attached photo. I would love to try out two things with this. Again, mainly to learn "how to".

1) I am fairly happy with the overall shape with the six "patches" of green. I would like to try to make each of the six as lush/green (with small leaves) as possible. The very basic question is: How do I do that? I've also attached a close up of the two bottom "patches". A lot is going on and I'm frankly completely unsure how to approach this. I fully realize that this is unlikely to be a question that can be answered easily, so perhaps my question is: Does anyone know of a tutorial or the like that adresses this question? To my surprise, I have not succeeded in finding one.

2) I would like to try to separate the two top branches a bit (marked with A and B in the photo). Some can be done with pruning, but I'd like to also try to train it with wiring. These are, however, not new branches. I'm unsure whether they are too old for me to train?

Bonus question: Perhaps the two questions / ideas above are the wrong ones. Is there something else I should rather be doing to learn?

I'm very much looking forward to some input

Stop trying to do too much. Plants do not like to be handled and need time to adjust. And when I say time.. Weeks, months.

I would leave it be for now and in summer when it is playing outside, work on it.