English Box: May 2025 creation – Bonsai facere est

Ok, I’ve been carping to myself about this one taking too much space since I took the paperbarks out in August 2024. I finally got around to doing something about it.

This is absolutely doing its job as a hedge. If I’d planted, oh, 100 of these along the street, I’d be feeling pretty pleased with it.

Side view showing how this has swallowed the dammeri cotoneaster at the back, and is threatening to swallow the ashes in the foreground.
(“Run for your life! The English Box is coming.” “But I’m a tree… what do I do?” “You die.”)

Trying to find a main trunk, but there’s not much of one.

Looking at another, and it seems to be entirely shoots.

A couple of hours pass.

Inspecting the shrubs, there’s definitely no trunks to speak of. They grow as shoots, like bamboo, sending runners out sideways and then going up.

I can’t believe I thought that smaller one was an option.

Another hour or two pass.

English Box: May 2025 creation — This is one of my oldest pots, which I mostly don’t like. But this is feeling like a good match, although I’m not sure it’s bonsai.

I have two ideas of how this could go.

Idea one: turn this into a hedge-in-a-box. The way it moves suggests a rainbow arc of green, partly overflowing the pot. The idea of a very trimmed hedge in a small pot amuses me. Could be interesting.
Idea two: try to mimic a forested mountainside. Imagine each individual branch pruned to a narrow conical shape like a pine. I’d fill in the base with rocky shale of some sort to enhance the rock feeling. Might be difficult to upkeep though.

This really depends on how it grows.