Brazillian Coral Tree (Erythrina crista-galli)

Attila

I have about 10 of them, grow from seed about 8 years ago. During these years I only worked on the trunk development, growing them a few years in the ground, then growing them in nursery pots for root ramification and then putting them back into the ground for more thickening. After a few trunk-chops they developed a pretty impressive taper and a thick corky bark at a young age.

In my experience they take almost any kind of rootpruning, and I had to prune really hard because of the long roots developing in the ground.
When young, these trees store a lot of water in their trunks, they lignify much slower than the other trees. In warm weather you can cut back any way you want, and they will develop new buds and branches very fast.

The significant drawback I noticed is that when winter comes here in California, the young, thin branches always die back all the way to last year's wood. May be because I keep them outside during the winter. So I have to avoid late pruning and let the branches mature before winter comes. May be, if I kept them indoors this wouldn't happen, but other than this nuissance, they are doing fine outdoors (this wouldn't apply to your climate though).

Another thing is that I am not sure that the leaves will reduce too much (it remains to be seen when planted into bonsai pots), so I am designing them as large bonsai (as so many other tropicals). The flowers aren't too small either, so there will be a scale problem if grown as small bonsai.

If you want large bonsai, you have to work on trunk development and taper first, before building the crown. You have to let them grow freely for a few years and then cut back drastically, then let them grow again.

I hope this helps.

Attila