4 Year Air Layer

I've been posting about this plant for years and I've finally reached the bonsai (kind of) stage.

Year 1, it started as a 15 dollar tree I found at home depot that most likely wasn't selling because it had a weird bend at the top. That weird bend looked perfect for a bonsai tree so I bought it ASAP, planted it in the ground, and let it recover for a year.

Year 2, I did the air layer in a small container. The roots took off very well and I pretty soon had to up-pot the air layer. I wanted as many roots as possible before removing it from the tree.

Year 3, I cut it off the tree and let it sit in a big pot so that it could recover for a year.

Year 4, I finally put it into a mesh pot to help develop roots. Most of the roots grew long instead of outward due to the large plastic pot so I had to trim about 30-40% of the roots. It started leafing out last week and it looks like the repot was a success so I am going to mostly leave it alone this year. No big cuts, just trimming to keep it this size and then next year I will begin the branch cutting stage to get more leaf pads in the tree.