I’ve circled the branches I feel need removed as I get ready to change the front of the tree. This will be the first pruning of this tree. It’s done really well so far but I’m wondering if nowt the right time. It’s flowering beautifully at the moment, so if anyone has a Fukien Tea could you inform me on the best time to branch prune as this is my first one. Also will the cutting be of any use??
Cheers

If you cut that much off you will probably kill it. Why do you think you need to cut half of the tree? This is a difficult species at best. Light pruning rather than so much would be far better, and if you must remove more then do it over two years or more.

It’s not half of the tree. It’s not even a third of the foliage at best. It’s branches that I feel are not visually pleasing.
The one on the left is a secondary branch which is starting to grow inwards, the middles circle is coming directly outwards and blocking vision into the heart of the tree. The right circle is another secondary branch that is again growing inwards.
I know how difficult this species can be, that’s why I’m here asking if anyone has any experience with these, and if now is a good time to remove branches.
Cheers

m5eaygeoff wrote:

If you cut that much off you will probably kill it. Why do you think you need to cut half of the tree? This is a difficult species at best. Light pruning rather than so much would be far better, and if you must remove more then do it over two years or more.

How would you defoliate Geoff? Its pushing out lots of new growth and flowers, its becoming bush like quite quickly since I reached my full feeding schedule.

Hello My friend . I will tell you about my pruning process on fukien tea and hope it helps you . I need to mention that it was my first bonsai experience .
about May 10 I pruned my fukien tea , it looked very healthy with a lot of flowers and shiny leafs . at first I pruned like 20 percent of the whole volume of the tree . there were some really bad growths which previous owner have let them grow so thick . so pruned quite hard and got the bad grows and some of bad old branches too . I was afraid the tree may die but in few days I removed like another 30 % . the tree looked so naked But I did all I wanted to prune so hard . I was really afraid of tree dying . but it took the pruning quite well and started to grow new shoots . I got more than 15 new shoots within 2 weeks and it is growing pretty well .
I live in Tehran , Iran , you can check the weather and humidity of my city , it used to be somethingn like 17 to 28 C Temp when i pruned .
I attach some pics before pruning and after pruning .
in After pruning picture there are some new shoots i let grow which i marked with red and what the tree actually looked liked when i pruned is marked with green lines.
I hope it helps you , all I can tell for sure is this much pruning i showed is not killing the tree at that time of the year

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Thankyou for sharing your experience @prongs
I went ahead and made 2 cuts at the start of this month.
I didn't want to upset it too much so I will leave it and possibly make the other 2 cuts when I see the tree has recovered well.
It does seem to have taken them quite well so who knows, maybe get to make the cuts this year.