I'd like to know the benefits of cutting the leaves in the
summer.

There are two:

1. Reducing leaf size (a goal only on a ready-to-show bonsai
since leaf size doesn't matter a whit to a tree in training, and
2. More importantly, as a means of improving the ramification
(twigginess) of the branches. This is why you would leaf prune a
tree in training.

A couple
books I have recommend either taking the leaves off all
together in late July
or cutting them in half or cutting two thirds of each leaf off.

Others' findings may differ, but I have never found any benefit
in partially snipping leaves.

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - Only where
people have learned to appreciate and cherish the landscape and
its living cover will they treat it with the care and respect it
should have - Paul Bigelow Sears.

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