Air layer those fugly roots right off to expose your inner beautiful ficus bonsai!

[Mayank]

Here's the Willow leaf ficus before I did anything

 

[Mayank]

Here it is during the process

 

[Mayank]

Those weird roots bothered me too so I cut them off. Here's just the bottom part repotted.

 

[Mayank]

Here's the two separate plants in a year or so

 

[Mayank]

The one tree today. Last winter it lost all it's leaves and looked like it was struggling. This year with the grow lights it's looking better but will look much fuller and the canopy more like a proper broom rather than a globe towards the middle of summer. Need to repot into a smaller pot but there is a huge mass of thick rootlike stuff underneath that I have to hack off.

 

[Mayank]

The other half, still under development

 

[Michael P]

A silk purse from a sow's ear!

 

[Anthony]

If you look at the backgrounds in Kung Fu movies
you will see how those ficus trees where meant to
be exhibited.

But, excellent work!!
Good Day
Anthony

 

[penumbra]

You do realise, it is / was a grafted plant ?

What bearing does that have. It doesn't matter if it was grafted or not. Results are results. OP did a great job.

 

[Michael P]

If you look at the backgrounds in Kung Fu movies
you will see how those ficus trees where meant to
be exhibited.

Kung Fu movies are excellent aesthetic examples.

 

[Mayank]

If you look at the backgrounds in Kung Fu movies
you will see how those ficus trees where meant to
be exhibited.

But, excellent work!!
Good Day
Anthony

Thanks for your interest. Your mentioned using different kind of ficus etc. You do realize I didn't buy this tree right? I was given it as a gift which I can't bear to ever toss a live tree. I couldn't give it away either cause noone I knew wanted it. So I was just playing with it and never expected results to amount to anything. The only reason I have posted this thread (even though I had originally intended to but never took the time) was because the same trees were appreciated in another thread:

Self isolation got me thrown out of the kitchen for parading shohins!

Second day of staying at home. Clearly the boredom is showing. While I'm waiting to acquire a nice shohin display stand I thought I'll play around with some tropicals I have chilling inside at this time :-) Probably switch out the orange tree for a kusamono type thing with some Fern or such..

www.bonsainut.com

by people and when I mentioned the air layering they wanted me to start another thread showing the progression. That's all. Not saying your points aren't valid. Just wanted you to know the purpose of this thread...

 

[Mayank]

What bearing does that have. It doesn't matter if it was grafted or not. Results are results. OP did a great job.

Thanks!

 

[LanceMac10]

The "gift" of a "ginsing" is pretty much akin to giving somebody a sick puppy for their birthday!!! WTF!!!!!

Nice job using technique. Won't hold throwing out the tubers against you....although they do make for some "randy" conversation!!!

 

[GSCarlson]

I get that people don’t like the roots on these, but without them it‘s a rather boring plant.

 

[Mayank]

I get that people don’t like the roots on these, but without them it‘s a rather boring plant.

Better boring than grotesque and unnatural but hey to each his/her own.

 

[LanceMac10]

 

[GSCarlson]

Better boring than grotesque and unnatural but hey to each his/her own.

Some of the best bonsai could be described as grotesque. Doesn’t make all grotesque trees good bonsai, but definitely doesn’t make a bonsai bad.

 

[Soup Dragon]

I have wondered if you could choose just one of those roots - the most interesting one - and remove the others. The chosen root would then become the trunk, with somewhat more credible proportions. Has anyone tried that?

I too was gifted one of these trees, and have been toying with the idea for a while. The only thing that holds me back is worrying about my friend being offended that I have destroyed the 'bonsai'.

Does anyone know if the roots on these plants feed separate branches? That is, if I removed one root, should I expect one of the branches to die, or would the remaining root(s) contribute to the plant as a whole?

 

[Mayank]

Some of the best bonsai could be described as grotesque. Doesn’t make all grotesque trees good bonsai, but definitely doesn’t make a bonsai bad.

Again I respectfully disagree but then again I am assuming you are speaking from a position of bonsai expertise. I am clearly nowhere near an expert so I will certainly respect your viewpoint.

 

[Matt H.]

.....