Hello everyone,i am a beginner to mirai forum and i would be happy if you helped me with my tree,its a Chamaecyparis pisifera ‘Boulevard’ and I do not know how to handle it concern when i’m pruning,what season,how i trimming the foliage and generally the works that need to be done!any information is welcome!greetings from Greece!!
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Is the plant a collected landscape plant or a nursery purchase? Knowing if its origin was Asia or North America would help know its tolerance for temperature variations. Can take full sun to part shade? My experience with nursery stock is that they brown out badly from the central foliage being shaded out. Good to thin out small un-necessary branches to allow air and sunlight into the interior. Phomopsis can be a problem so do not over water! Fungus is easier to prevent than to cure.
in the family “Cupressaceae” same as the Giant Sequoia try watching these. https://live.bonsaimirai.com/library/video/redwood-theory | Bonsai Mirai Live…
Send a photo if you can.
Size and health of plant determines what it can tolerate.
Good luck and let us know how you are doing!
thanks for replying to the message,the tree I bought it from a nursery from Italy in 2016 and since then i’m just trying το maintain the foliage mass but i generally go blind.I have it in semi shade out.
This is my tree.
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Looks good and healthy! Keeping the trunk visible allows sunshine and air into the foliage to keep it green and free from fungus. Have you considered working the nebari to have roots at one level? The one root on the right appears to be elevated above the soil line. Maybe an illusion, but distracts from the line of the trunk. When working with nursery material I repeat the mantra… compress and compact… compress and compact.
I try to achieve an alpine appearance that denotes age at elevation. If you are trying to depict a tree that would grow in a meadow, or parkland then other techniques would reflect your goal.
Keeping the tree healthy this long shows you are doing what it needs to stay healthy. If you want to push it towards a new direction watch those streams and decide where you want to go in the future with your design. 
We are so lucky that we have this forum and the live streams to push our skill and knowledge!
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These are tricky because they tend to readily shed interior foliage/shoots, and they are reluctant to backbud on older branches/trunk. Thus, the advice to keep them thinned out enough to let sun into the interior is very important. I have 2 of these and am still figuring it out. I have worked a bit with someone locally who does a great job with these (National Exhibition level trees) and he recommends lots of pinching. It seems that if you let the tips run out too much it encourages the shedding of interior growth.
On one of mine I lost control a few years ago and may have to try grafting to shorten some of the overly long branches.
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Thanks Chris for the tips,my question is in which point in the foliage we make the cut,i ask because i can not discern any bud to the foliage.
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I generally try to cut back to a smaller/side branch (or bud when present) when possible. If not, on healthy shoots cutting anywhere along the length will usually result in new shoots either on that shoot or at the base. When pinching I just grab and pull off the new tips (hold with one hand just behind the tips so you don’t pull off too much). As I said, still figuring out the best way to handle these and since not many people have grown them well, there’s not a lot of info out there. Best thing I can suggest is to make cuts in various places and see how the tree responds, then incorporate that into your work. When healthy these are quite vigorous.
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On Saturday i am thiking to make to the tree a good haircut,to bring the foliage back,to open some space to bring some light to the new inner growth,and autumn i will wire,make some bigger cuts on the branches to make the ramifications.Do you agree??
Hey Theodore, sorry for the delayed reply. Where are you located? I’ve done a bunch of work on my boulevard cypresses over the past 2-3 weeks and they are responding well. But it is getting later in the season, so if you’re in a pretty cold climate you’re probably running out of time for this year. I’m in Rochester NY area, US zone 6.