While perusing the clearance section at Lowe’s (one of my favorite places), I found this little guy.

He was $13, marked down to $5. Just a few yellow leaves, but otherwise great! The leaves reminded me of a boxwood, but with jagged edges and a different shape. I really liked it. After confirming that Green Spire Euonymus can be trained as a bonsai, I snatched it up.

Chop chop chop. I shortened long, spindly branches to make it more compact. Now you can see the dual trunk. Two little trunks that grew together. I am normally not a fan of that style of bonsai, but I shouldn’t knock it til I try it. After turning it and looking as all of its angles, I determined the best front.

There we go. Look at those neat nebari (surface roots). There is an obvious primary and secondary trunk, and the angles work.

This looks silly. Why did I do this? I am keeping those two branches as sacrifice branches- they will help thicken up the trunks and eventually be cut off once I am satisfied. They were growing upward, so I wired them away so that 1) they receive maximum sunlight, so more growth, more girth, and 2) it gets them out of the way so that I can more easily visualize the future bonsai.

I let this guy recover for a few weeks. I was pleased to see new growth. Then, I jumped in to work on the branches.

And here is the final result! I thinned out branches and added movement to all the branches. It will be interesting to see how this little guy progresses!