Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you may be, I am, to no one's surprise, new to bonsai, and I am living and growing in Austin, TX, USDA zone 8b. Just so you know, I do have about 40 years of horticultural experience (aquatic plants, succulents, Streptocarpus and Aroids, mostly), just very little bonsai experience. I only started in the beginning of June of this year with a Juniperus procumbens var. nana. Needless to say, I'm utterly smitten.

Before i clarify my topic, let me just take a moment to say thank all the gods above & below for Bonsai Empire. You people are the best! I think I prefer and accept this site uncritically over all the others because of the "for professionals by professionals" vibe without being toxically egocentric or distractingly capitalistic. The general Juniper and Bonsai guides are reasonably priced as are the fantastic video courses, demystifying everything. Thank you all for your hard work!

Now, yesterday evening I made a total scrub move and bought, root pruned, styled and wired all in one go a Buxus microphylla var. japonica 'Gegem' during the beginning of a typically bright, hot & humid Texas summer placing it on a west by northwest exposure (approximately 280 degrees, plus or minus 3 degrees) with 4-7 hours of direct sunlight starting in the mid afternoon. I do recall the old adage of "One insult per year" which I have completely disregarded in my foolishness and glee but I also understand that like certain Junipers, they seem to enjoy the abuse and bounce back with a vengeance or at least that's the delusion I'm entertaining, for now.

Now one thing I have searched the Internet for, as well as this very venerable site, is an answer to the question, when to unwire a bonsai? I get that every species & cultivar is different and a lot of it requires experience & judgement but I have spent too much time in the software industry (QA) that I've gotten into the bad habit of trying to parameterize everything, make all tasks programmatic and reduce variation as much as possible. Notice I said reduce variation, not eliminate. Eliminating variation altogether is a fool's errand.

The best I could come up with for genus Buxus in general is to "Remove the wire during the same season", source here.

Can I interpret this to mean no more than 3 months or less than 3 months? I've come to understand that Boxwoods are flexible little things and they grow leaves and bark rather quickly. Height & thick trunks, not so much. This particular variety is said to be especially hardy. My major concern is scaring the wood though I have used raffia tape as recommended.

So, when exactly to unwire a newly pruned, potted, styled and wired Buxus microphylla var. japonica 'Gegem' of approximately 3-5 years old which has just had a third of roots pruned as well as a third of its foliage? That is the question.

Thank you all in advance.

Here is your single advice to reduce variation and is valid for all trees:

Leave the wire on as long as possible without biting the wood. Just before the wire starts to bite the wood, take it off.

A tree that has got all work done at the same time and in the wrong season should in shade to recover 5-7 hours of direct sunlight is far too much.

It is important to realize that -unless you wire green shoots- branches need to thicken before they set.

Unwiring before the branches starts to thicken around the branch is counterproductive.

Depening on the species one needs to wire green shoots (e.g., thin barked deciduous such as japanese maples) or use guy wires to avoid scarring. Here you leave wire on and remove latest when the wire starts to look flattened.

Other species (e.g., pine and juniper) clean up wire scars in a few years and there you can leave the wire on untill half of the wire is swallowed.

How LONG this takes depends on the species, climage, care (Growing rate) and cannot be universally answered. Check the wiring every few days. Specific parts of the year show extreme increments in girth, and wire may be swallowed unexpectedly.

Tropfrog, Leatherback, thank you for your kind advice.

To confirm, what I think you're both telling me, is that, like watering, unwire based on observation, not routine. Is that correct? I get the feeling that's heart of your advice. This feels right to me. The seasonal limit in the source I found I should probably treat as an uppermost limit.

I can do that. I really don't know why I couldn't have derived that for myself, but that's the learning curve for you .

ukamikazu wrote:

Tropfrog, Leatherback, thank you for your kind advice.

To confirm, what I think you're both telling me, is that, like watering, unwire based on observation, not routine. Is that correct? I get the feeling that's heart of your advice. This feels right to me. The seasonal limit in the source I found I should probably treat as an uppermost limit.

I can do that. I really don't know why I couldn't have derived that for myself, but that's the learning curve for you .

Unwire when the wire bites in.
For some species, 3 weeks (in the growing season).
For others, one to two years (mostly old conifers).
So the right answer is...
It depends.

Clicio wrote:

Unwire when the wire bites in.
For some species, 3 weeks (in the growing season).
For others, one to two years (mostly old conifers).
So the right answer is...
It depends.

...and I'm comfortable with that . I'll keep an eye out, most certainly but I think the boxwood's answer lies somewhere in between 2 & 4 weeks. I'm working off the assumption that the information regarding mature but younger, smaller specimens grow leaves, bark and girth on their limbs rather quickly is largely reliable. i should probably post a follow up for posterity's sake when when me and Box make that next stop on our journey.

Boxwood is very slow growing.

leatherback wrote:

Boxwood is very slow growing.

From what I've read so far, it's very slow to gain height (not they get very tall) and thicken its trunk but very quick to grow leaves, bark and thicken the smaller branches from which the leaves grow. Multiple sources seem to confirm this for Japanese boxwood but I will proceed cautiously and skeptically. You all do know far better than me at this point, I'm not ashamed to admit and direct experience does count for a lot.

leatherback wrote:

Boxwood is very slow growing.

I stand very much corrected. Doing some more digging in some books and a few distant corners of the Internet, I have indeed found that boxwood is indeed very slow growing, often not changing much over the course of three or four years. I confounded speed of growth with proliferation of shoots after pruning. Yes it will sprout a lot, eventually. My apologies for being hasty.