grafting roots together ficus retusa

[thailand-steve]

i found this on the interweb



i want to try do something like this myself with f.retusa but i have never seen multiple trunks coming off one root system like this. i've seen lots of multi trunk f.retusa but they all join at the base.

so i was thinking the way to achieve this would be grafting identical diameter roots together.

does anyone know if they will fuse together into a single clean root like in that pic? i was thinking of trying V or slant cuts then tying together with some kind of bio degradable twine.

any advice?

Actually, i've just had an idea, i could drill a hole though the base of one trunk and pass a long root from another trunk through the hole (like a normal root graft). in time the root will grow to fill the hole and grow into the 2nd trunk.

i'll try both ways and see which method works best.

will post pics when i'm done anyhow.

 

[MrFancyPlants]

My adice is go for it. Ficus are supposed to be the easiest, and I believe it destpite my failures w my first couple of attempts. I know that the bark had no problem smoothing over scars. I am about to try my third approach with the finest nail or tack to hold it in place sometime soon in the next couple weeks. I am going from one plant to itself this time to be sure there are no differences in bark.

 

[thailand-steve]

another idea i had is to take smaller roots from 2 or more small trees and wrap the roots together very tightly and wire. i know branches will fuse by doing this, maybe roots will too?

 

[KennedyMarx]

I bet they will fuse, but I would use the twine or raffia not wire to wrap them. I figure that the wire will cut in very badly before they even start to fuse.

 

[thailand-steve]

I bet they will fuse, but I would use the twine or raffia not wire to wrap them. I figure that the wire will cut in very badly before they even start to fuse.

good idea, roots do grow fast on these. i had to repot a retusa after only 3 weeks since the last repot (because i made a bit of design mistake) and the new roots had already grown over 6"