Plan ahead to do advanced pruning to produce fresh new growth and/or blooms at show time. 10-14 days is often enough for small plants to recover in midsummer. Ground covers tend to need frequent pruning to keep nice foliage and growth at the center. The author has spent much time nipping dead or drying leaves off inner stems of thymes or sedum, and lifting new shoots up to hide those stems. In most cases, creepers like thyme and sedum sprawl over the rim everywhere very quickly, but instead look best just poking out here and there, and perhaps not more than halfway down the edge of any horizontal pot at the tip. Large shoots rising against the outer rim of the pot may be unsightly. Plants should either be a natural looking mass as in a lush environment, or show distinct features, not halfway overgrown on each other, which appears unkempt. Prune out-of-scale leaves. Maintain the desired profile.

Grass blades on coarse (e.g. mondo) grass should not be pruned on end, leaving browned obviously cut ends, although I have cheated with angular end cuts just at show time where a blade was crucial. Overly long blades may be out of proportion with the rest of the planting or become marked. Remove the whole blade, cutting close to the stem where hidden. Doing this early will help.

Clean the pot or containers as with regular bonsai pots; ensure moss or other soil covering is intact. If sitting in another container of sand/etc. for moisture retention, lift it a week or two early and trim roots extending through the drainage hole, to allow time to recover.

Remove old dead blades and dead leaves on other plants with tweezers or fine shears. Tweezers are your friend, and avoid much damage from big fingers. Clean every bit of fallen matter. Every detail in a tiny container becomes apparent, and a single tree seed, pine needle, or dead blade of lawn grass forsakes the scaled vision. Stand back, and check the result at the display level. And enjoy!