Big Benjamina Freebie

[MHBonsai]

Time to repot into something more manageable.

 

[MHBonsai]

 

[MHBonsai]

Chop chop. Bare rooted. Cut the root ball flat. It's going into a 5 inch deep box.

 

[MHBonsai]

 

[MHBonsai]

I potted it at a bit of an angle to work better with the trunk movement and root spread. Still a long way to go on nebari, the two big shoulder roots are very 2 dimensional.

 

[MHBonsai]

A discovery I'm not super happy about, the lower trunk has a very large hollow that had rotted around 3" up into the center of the trunk. I carved out all the punky wood and once it dries out I will fill it with epoxy to give it something to heal over, and hopefully stop the rot. I have a handful of small cuttings that I might root graft over the opening once I fill it.

 

[MHBonsai]

For now I'm treating it like a big cutting, keeping it in the shade and with plenty of humidity to help it recover for several weeks. I'm hoping it holds its leaves.

 

[MHBonsai]

Dreaming

 

[plant_dr]

Awesome transformation from the beginning, love it! IMHO The virtual looks kind of pointy for a tropical though, I'd go for a more rounded crown.

 

[MattE]

This made my jaw drop lol, i havent sen anything Frankensteined before love it , great job i wish you much success with this tree

 

[MHBonsai]

Early winter update. The ficus was out-growing my tent...time for a cutback to direct growth. (mostly to lower branches, and away from the apex.) I keep it at 75 - 85 degrees, 75% humidity.

I also put in an approach graft through one of the chops into the callous, coming off the first branch. In the photo it is the one that is wired down, and across the trunk.

I will probably end up re-chopping the apex much lower to continue the tapering process, but for now I want a lot of growth to keep healing the chop scars.

 

[MHBonsai]

Good growth over the winter. I put in a big approach graft from a summer cutting for the second branch around Christmas. It still isn’t fully fused yet. The tree is putting out tons of air roots. For now I’m not letting them root in the soil until I figure out where I'm going with this thing long term.

I cut back all the canopy hard to keep light on the first three branches.

One lesson learned, this tree does not like the liquid cut paste that dries hard. I don't know if it is just too firm when it dries or what but it totally stopped any real callus growth. The putty seems to work ok. So does just leaving cuts exposed.

I'll leave it in the tent for another month or so then it goes outside.

 

[MHBonsai]

Crappy finger phone sketch

 

[MHBonsai]

Summer repot. It's been through several hard cutbacks and another chop up high to keep building taper. I've had a couple lucky back buds in good spots. And several grafts that have not stuck for one reason or another.

 

[MHBonsai]

I did a lot of big root pruning to get it to one level of big roots and minimize the tubers. I'm glad to get it out of that 24" grow box and into something I can carry myself.



Hindsight I should have gone harder on the roots in the initial potting.



I cut off one of the big shoulder roots and angled the trunk even further right. The big dead hollow I've epoxied and seems to be holding good after a year.

 

[MHBonsai]

 

[MHBonsai]

Besides the grafts failing I'm pretty happy with the direction it's headed. First and second branches are on the way to making pads and the canopy is taking shape slowly. I'll let it grow hard the rest of the summer to keep healing chops and build some thickness. It's still a really big tree for me. That's a 20" Chinese pot.

 

[MHBonsai]

Dreaming

 

[SU2]

My only advice would be if you’re going to chop it at all, be bold and chop hard the first time. You’ll get one good chance for vigorous budding and growth - don’t let that all happen up high and then have to cut it off again later.

While I'm sure someone else covered this already (gonna be reading the entirety when back from work ), DO NOT just blindly chop a ficus benjamina!!! They are NOT reliable back-budders, always chop in a way you're leaving a living branch or you can kill the specimen (usually chopping to the lowest shoot will induce lower back-budding that you can then cut-back to later), benjaminas aren't like microcarpas this way and are known to die off if trunk-chopped to the point of no foliage (my first-ever trunk-chop was actually the death of my loved topiary ficus.B!)

 

[Vietcu]

Wow what a nice write up. Just happen to see your thread now after I trimmed chop mine. Looks almost similar to your tree. Just wanted to follow along, might be copying what you are doing to yours. I don’t even know how long mine has been repotted. Thanks for sharing the updates to yours.