Hello!

I have a few different trees going and I'm not quite sure how to prune in order to achieve my goals...

1. First, I have a crab apple tree that I have grown from seed. It is ~3 years old and about 3.5 feet tall. It is skinny as a rail and has no branches. For three years it was growing in a relatively deep pot, and one month ago I repotted it into a shallow bonsai pot. It is doing well in the new pot as far as I can tell. My question is: how can I encourage the tree to thicken the trunk and create branches? It is plenty tall so I would be happy to maintain or decrease its current height... Should I just start pinching new growth of the top? Or aggressively prune the trunk??

2. I have a similar situation to the above with a 6 month old Ficus benjamina that is growing well. I wouldn't be opposed to this one gaining some more height...I'm just not sure if I should be pruning while it grows?

3. Lastly, I have a small store-bought needle juniper. I would like it to grow significantly larger. Should I be trying to create "foliage pads" as it grows by pruning/pinching shoots as it grows? Or let it grow unchecked until it is the size that I want before beginning to style by pruning?

Thank you so much!