RE: Comments Request: Improve my Lime Citrus Tree [Bonsai]
Hey guys! @creativetruth thank you for shouting my name, it means a lot. I'm proud to be here not just to help but to learn from everybody, checking out a post from your authorship is always a hype, cheers!
Let's get to business: that lower horizontal branch has to go. lol no, I'm not that of a dictator myself; learned that the hard way. And even if we both agree it would be a shame for me to waste such a long stem just for the sake of visuals. I always mourn every branch that I prune from my plants, even tried to grow roots from them, but haven't been succesful, yet.
I have a couple of thoughts about "these two plants". Did you know you can literally grow more than probably a hundred lime seeds in a pot like that, at once? I think I have at least a couple of that variety, but I would need to compare their fruits to see If they match. You could take out all of their roots entirely, prune them and plant them again without they even dropping a leaf. How strong is going to be the sunlight for the next two months, you have them without direct sunlight ATM?
My second thought is more of a question. Looking at your plants, I think you could at least try to search into the soil to check if both trunks have separated root systems. Do you know about "air layering" propagation? Both main trunks look like they're reaching a mature stage, turning from green to brown you can see the long way they have endured. Althought they look small, I don't think you have to worry much about the leaves. When they reach a certain ammount of maturity the leaves will look or will sprout smaller if you keep them as bonsai trees. for how long have you been growing them, two years, three? From the ammount of leaves they don't look much younger at all.
I think it's over three years now.
Since I only repotted it once, by delicately putting the 6 month old seedling into the larger pot, I will have to do some investigation as to how the roots look. It doesn't seem to be pot bound, so I hesitate to unearth them, but maybe I will since you say they are very resilient at this age of maturity.
Can you explain more about why removing the bottom branch is recommended, and what shape you would encourage to match my goal?
The thing about yours is that it has so many nodes already, that it could be entirely subjective a form for either one, I believe that you could even leave them together in that pot and see what happens, they really have that form into growing in a matchful pair. I also agree with the analogy of it as one tree, they blend together pretty well, and both have lots of space still to grow, so I wouldn't disagree if you decide not to stress their roots, but if you have them indoors, it's worth a check.
About the pruning, the bottom branch it's pretty obvious, it's too horizontal and even dropping down at some parts, especially at its half, reminds me of a hammack. Althought I wouldn't obligate it, if you expect it to grow limes, the tree will try to challenge gravity and may not succeed.
As I said having so many nodes would also mean that after pruning you pretty much should expect for the lime tree to sprout twice this ammount of nodes/new stems. But I also think that the 3node rule is pretty flawless when it comes to these sort of decisions. What I would encourage is to prune it now and to take advantage of the lack of direct sunlight. The trunks and branches, the leaves as well look very healthy, so I wouldn't mind any shape at all, as long as you are designing it as a bonsai and pruning whenever it's best. The plant(s) will respond with growth if you guide them through it, and you are pretty good at it yourself!
Rough sketch! I'll try to work on another pic, but I found this sketch very cool. What do you think, have something else though out? I didn't know that you made the lower branch go that way with wires, did you thought about the fruits that it would sprout? Maybe for being that low it could be like a cool way, to have the fruits standing on the ground like a cucurbita, you could leave that branch for as long as you want and see where that goes!
I don't think I ever noticed this sketch image last time. Maybe you slipped it in on a comment update.
Anyways, I'm checking back through this post for ideas, so I can finally make some of the pruning and wiring choices on my lime tree. I decided to do most of the major cuts in the summer, because it is responding so well to sprouting new leaves right now. Once I take the tree indoors, it should have a comfortable environment to get used to its new shape.