"Spider" wrote in message
...

Rupert wrote in message
...

"Rae" wrote in message
...

I've just received three small Red Cascade plants (Euonymus euorpaeus
Red Cascade). The details say they grow to about 9 feet high, but I
need to keep them about 3 feet maximum as they will be in pots under a
window.

At the moment the plants are just stems, about 12-20 inches long and
about 1/4" in diameter, without any flowers or leaves.

I don't know much about gardening or how to prune things. Can anyone
give me advice on how to prune them to make them bonsai and keep the
height down, while still encouraging foliage and berries?


--
Rae
I guess you don't really mean bonsai in the true sense.They will
withstand
quite hard pruning and I guess you could maintain a height of about 3
feet
without resorting to root pruning.
I suppose you could grow them on in pots which would constrict growth.


Hi,

My Euonymous europeus 'Red Cascade' makes *at least* 9ft each year, even
though I coppice it annually after leaf fall. Rae wishes to keep berries
as
well as leaves, and I fail to see how he could manage this if he pruned it
often enough to maintain the height at 3ft. Indeed, the only way he might
manage it would be to treat his plants as bonsai. This would mean growing
them in pots rather than a border so that he could access the roots for
root
pruning.

There is an approach that could be very successful, but I suspect Rae
would
only need one plant. Using a framework of wires on the wall below the
window, the Euonymous could be trained espalier-fashion. This would
result
in a good framework so the plant more-or-less evenly covers the wall.
Although inexperienced, I'm sure Rae could tie in branches to the
framework
and prune only when the Euonymous out-grew the boundary of the framework.
This would also mean cutting back branches which grew too far forwards,
and
cutting out branches which grew backwards toward the wall, but this
pruning
is self-explanatory and doesn't require any special technique.

Spider


Excellent idea and as you say it's not too difficult.
As Rae has three plants then he could experiment with the other two