Hello everyone, I'm new in this forum. I came looking for advise on how to deal with (what seem) burns in the foliage of my Sekka Hinoki.

Just after buying my tree, I noticed that there were some burnt leaves. It looks like the tree was exposed to the Sun in a hot day. I read somewhere that those areas are dead, that the tree won't get rid of them naturally and that it's better to trim them.

As you can see in the second photo, some burns are close to the trunk, just below a relatively huge green area of foliage. I'm not very happy about cutting that green area to get rid of the damaged are in the base. What do you recommend to do in such a case?

That is not burning, but yes you can prune it out. They will take any amount of sun, the hotter the better as long as they are not dry.

m5eaygeoff, thank you so much for your reply and advise. I have tried to find information but I didn't know how to refer to these brownish areas. Why they appear and what are they?

Most importantly, what will happen if I don't prune the affected leaves? (in the picture, one of these dry areas is just below a huge green branch which I don't want to cut).

Not sure what you are seeing. But.. As leaves/needles/scales age, they start dying off and turn brown, eventually dropping leaving just the branch in place.

If a branch is pruned and no new growin tip is formed, the branch eventually will die off. Turns brown.

All part of the normal pattern. The key in bonsai is learning to prune in a way that the crown is ever renewing

leatherback, thank you! I feel a bit relieved reading your explanation. I will keep an eye on the tree and see how things evolve.

Do you have any recommendation in terms of readings or videos on how to correctly prune the sekka hinoki for beginners?

Bot really. Not my sort of species. I prefer larger trees. Think 20, 30kgs

Wow, those are pretty huge trees!
In any case, thank you. I will keep looking for information.