Couple of new pre-bonsai, need some input..! UPDATE

I was able to get this couple of nice pre-bonsai's from the nursery of one of our club members, who is moving to another location due to some robbery going on lately on the neighborhood. Needless to say that I got them for a ridiculous price, but now I need some help, ANY input you can provide me will be very helpful.

I hope this are the right names for them:

1. Buxus sempervirens (Boxwood)
2. Malus species? (Ripe Crabapple)

If anyone can provide me with some kind of "plan" as to what I should be doing in the next few years with them, that also can help.

Thanks for the help!

Your crabapple looks a bit flimsy. Unfortunately, they don't particularly like summer heat. I would repot it in a growing box or in the ground & beef it up.
Iris

On the Boxwood

I think I would remove the lower branch (unless it supports a lot of foliage and its immediate and total remove would damage the vigor ot the plant.)

I would cut back the other branches and remove some of the inner foliage, you need to see the structure of the plant.

(However, be careful, in my experience these are not the greatest back budding plants, especially on hardened branches.)

I pruned some of the foliage on the boxwood in an effort to try to reveal some of the branches (not many ) I think it came up fairly well, I'll say I removed about 50~60% of the foliage, even after the pruning still some areas hard to see but I guess you'll have a better idea now.



"Back" view



Close up of the "extra" branch, if I ended up removing it I think it will be pretty easy to get something out of it, since there seem to be some nice roots attached to it, but I'm still debating if I can incorporate it into the whole design of the tree.



Some death wood on the "back" of the tree



Does this help you to get a better view of the tree?

Hello, in my inexperienced view, i think you have got a exelent piece of material, lovelly nebari, and i would leave the second trunk were it is and try to design something twin trunk, but, that's only my humble opinion, regards...

Looking again at the first branch/trunk, I think a twin trunk might be the best route because removing the second trunk would lose too much in the way of roots.

I'd certainly choose another front. Those two pruning scars give me the impression that the tree is staring at me!

If you could somehow winch the two trunks closer together so it wasn't such a "V" shape (maybe via a well-padded turnbuckle and a LOT of time) I think you would have a nice twin trunk. For once the second trunk appears low enough to actually BE a trunk. Too many "twin trunks" are actually trees with a large, low branch.

First, I would say that your boxwood looks like it could be a very nice tree. If this were my tree, I'd be aiming for the look of an old, hoary oak.

Second, my experience has been different than Billy's in that I find that my boxwoods back-bud fairly liberally. It could just be that my climate's more forgiving, but we do get awful, awful weather here in the summers. My trees don't seem to mind anything from mostly sun to full shade. I also find that I can trim back and wire these trees just about as many times per year as I can find time to repeat the process, and they respond well every time. I'm talking about LIGHT pruning here, of secondary or tertiary shoots...I am NOT saying that you should conduct heavy branch removal any time you like, multiple times per year.

I would leave the low branch/trunk in place, I would keep trimming back the long, obviously excess shoots, and I would wait for buds to sprout all over the place. I wouldn't worry too much about the "eyes" as you think about the front--you can create some nice deadwood/hollows incorporating those eyes eventually.

I think the plan with that low branch/trunk should be to keep cutting back the foliage on the outer half of it or so to encourage low back-budding on that branch. You should think that the only part of that branch that you will use in the final design, a few years from now, will be the first half-inch of it or so. That way you'll get to keep the heavy base of the branch, plus maybe that scar at the base which possibly could be used as a deadwood feature, and then you'll lose the long, straight, non-tapering part beyond that. As back-buds emerge low on that branch, encourage those, while continuing to cut back everything else.

Sorry to be so long-winded. I hope that made sense.