Fusing different ficus species?

[jason1hunsperger]

Hello everyone. I am new to bonsai and I am discovering water propagation with ficus and have been getting alot of successes. I have quite a few fusion projects I am working on (I'll eventually make posts when they grow more) but I wanted to show this one early to see what people thought. In the picture I have a benjamina veriegated and a tiger bark ficus. I taped them together with some non sticky tape. Will these 2 species fuse together?

 

[penumbra]

I couldn't say, but probably not and if they do, one would probably overtake the other. But I am curious ..... Why? Except as a plant curiosity I see no other reason to do it unless you just want to say 'look what I did'.

 

[jason1hunsperger]

I couldn't say, but probably not and if they do, one would probably overtake the other. But I am curious ..... Why? Except as a plant curiosity I see no other reason to do it unless you just want to say 'look what I did'.

I was thinking the same. I am worried the tiger bark will grow more than the benjamina and eventually kill it off. I think I'll have to prune the tiger bark more than the benjamina. I did it cause I thought it would look interesting. A tree with 2 different types of leaves would create an interesting canopy and both barks are slightly different so it would make an interesting trunk.

 

[Shibui]

Grafting is usually possible between species in the same genus. Fusing is essentially grafting and we know that grafting Ficus is possible because we see the grafted Ginseng Ficus sold in thousands.
I have not tried fusing benji with tiger bark but I assume it is likely to be successful.

The stated problems with differential growth rates is real. We see the same problem when Ginseng root stock sprouts and overwhelms the grafted scion. We also see it in multi grafted apple trees but the problem can be controlled with differential pruning.

Not sure that diffrent barks and leaves on a single tree would be interesting. Maybe odd? But I respect your initiative to try it and hope it goes well.

 

[jason1hunsperger]

Grafting is usually possible between species in the same genus. Fusing is essentially grafting and we know that grafting Ficus is possible because we see the grafted Ginseng Ficus sold in thousands.
I have not tried fusing benji with tiger bark but I assume it is likely to be successful.

The stated problems with differential growth rates is real. We see the same problem when Ginseng root stock sprouts and overwhelms the grafted scion. We also see it in multi grafted apple trees but the problem can be controlled with differential pruning.

Not sure that diffrent barks and leaves on a single tree would be interesting. Maybe odd? But I respect your initiative to try it and hope it goes well.

Thank you for your answer. I'm hopeful it works out well. I will post updates if it is successful

 

[ponderingsage]

I would go for it… even with different growth rates, it could be funky. Non traditional but could be a cool experiment to learn from

 

[jason1hunsperger]

I would go for it… even with different growth rates, it could be funky. Non traditional but could be a cool experiment to learn from

Thank you. And funky is exactly what in going for haha