Here is my first attempt at beginning to style a bonsai - please be gentle with me!
I bought this cotoneaster from a garden centre in February (along with several other plants that I am going more slowly and carefully with). I could tell it had some nice twisty bits. When I got it home I repotted it into a somewhat shallower pot and tried to spread the roots out a bit. They're nothing special, at least at the moment, another reason to treat this as an exercise rather than something that will turn into a proper bonsai. I planted it at a different angle as I wanted an informal upright rather than a semi-cascade, though in fact I think it's going all windswept on me.
A couple of weeks ago I cut it down to the bones to see what was going on. I put a bit of wire on (probably wrong technique...). The shape generally pleases me though it's certainly not what I was aiming at when I started. I'm not even certain which is the leader! The stubs on the left are the remains of dead twigs to be trimmed later, I am hoping something new will shoot to replace them (B1). I've done some virtuals of what I think I might be aiming at and multiple shots around it to give you some clues as to what it actually looks like in 3D. I've put all the pictures on the following web page. (hope the link works)
http://pic1.piczo.com/penshe/?g=27858024&cr=1
My questions are:
1) how much of a disaster is this! (actually I'm not sure I want you to answer that)
2) what should I be doing with F1? Wherever I put it it looks a bit awkward at the moment but I don't want to cut it off until I'm sure I don't need it.
3) I can't decide how big I should let F3 get - as a branch I like it about as it is in the virtual but I can't help feeling that I'll then have trouble getting a sensible shaped foliage pad on it, so maybe it needs to be longer and curve right over like F1 but maybe a little lower down.
4) what shape should the foliage pads be on a cotoneaster, and how do you shape them? I've looked in all my books but they don't say much about cotoneasters. My instinct is to just keep trimming them back like topiary but I dare say there's something much more subtle I need to do.
My intention of course is to do nothing further to it this year unless you recommend me to - should i even trim the foliage back?
It is living outside by the way, just came into the kitchen for the photos. It's about the size I want it already.