When to collect

There is a Star Magnolia tree about 5 ft. tall at a nursery that I want to buy and cut down to about 2 ft. I live in Brooklyn New York and I was wondering when I should move the tree to a shallow pot and do the trimming. The way the tree is now, all of the buds are midway and up on the tree. Should I wait to do the work until the flowers have opened and do regular feeding of the tree, or should I do it sooner? The tree has great potential and I'd hate to harm it. Any advice is much appreciated!

Thanks, Lawrence

You certainly want to either remove all the flower buds now and THEN repot, or let it flower, then fertilize and repot in a month or two. Up where you live, I suspect it's a bit early to do much right now, anyway.

Thank you Jim! I think I'm going to purchase the tree and let it flower. I'm just nervous about the fact that there aren't any buds in the area where I want to prune it down to. I plan on fertilizing it about every week after the flowers bloom and re-pot it in mostly akadama and cut the branching down drastically around mid may. I've heard the roots can be fragile so I'm worried about that and also that the tree won't recover and grow new leaves. Please advise if this doesn't seem correct for the New York area.


Thanks, Lawrence