Post hydroponic ficus finagling

[cbroad]

I'm going to try to start posting more of my trees, for critiques, public pillory, or whatever. I have very few devoted threads for my stuff, other than crap that I posted when I first came here in 2014.

I've been trying to push my stuff forward since joining here, so a lot of my stuff are projects and I haven't been posting much because there hasn't been much to see... But, I'm going to try to just post my works in progress and see where they go from there.

This ficus was originally a hydroponic experiment that was actually pretty successful, in that I learned a lot and the plant did pretty well. This was the original thread about it: Ficus experiment I had to transfer it to soil in summer of 2018, so progress slowed down since then but things are progressing.

Last summer it threw some aerial roots, so I used a piece of plastic as a dam and threw some soil around the trunk. My intention was to back the soil off shortly after the aerial roots got down into the soil, but I never got around to it...

This was last month:


Taking the dam off and seeing what's what:



So basically I ended up ground layering it, which is fine because this base is better than the original. There is more trunk buried, so eventually I'll uncover the original base, separate the two, and work both as different trees.

The nebari has obvious issues, but I'll see what I can do with it when it's time to separate and repot, which will hopefully be later this summer.

 

[cbroad]

During a rainy week a couple weeks ago, the tree threw more aerials, so I tried once again to get them to make it to the soil before drying out. Made a container from a cut up 1 gal water bottle and filled with 50/50 perlite and chopped sphagnum.

Roots on 6/18



Checked it yesterday and decided I had to get these roots taken care of before they get too out of hand.



Substrate mostly cleared away and roots combed out and roughly positioned




I recovered with the substrate, and wrapped plastic around it and then tinfoil. I'm planning to let these roots establish for a little while (hopefully no more than a month) and when I'm ready to repot and separate these two trees, I'll have a ground layered tree with hopefully some interesting roots. I'll more than likely thin these aerial roots in the future.

 

[cbroad]

In anticipation for the severing of the upper portion, and probably that I'll have to prune some of the longer branches back to not work the new root system too hard, I did an air layer.



The hope is to have that right wired branch exiting the soil at around 20-30 degrees, and the left wired branch to be the new leader.

 

[Forsoothe!]

This worked pretty good, but it's unclear on why you bothered. You made two trees out of one. Wouldn't it be more bonsai-like to make one tree the size of two? Who needs more small trees?

 

[cbroad]

With the first burying of the aerial roots, I never meant to let them get out of hand but the work was never done; I originally wanted to uncover it a month after doing it. I was hoping for some more interest with aerial roots.

So, the first ground layering was unintentional but after seeing what had happened, that's when I began thinking about growing the top as a second tree and separating.

When I had the second round of aerials and used the plastic bottle walls, I took advantage of the tree giving me another level of roots to help the layer wean off of the main roots, and it'll hopefully add more character to the trunks.

 

[cbroad]

Right now I'm just rebuilding the base. At least how things are now I have plenty to work with, and can choose what to keep and cut later.

This was the main trunk some time before, the new nebari is somewhere above the branching

 

[cbroad]

You made two trees out of one.
Wouldn't it be more bonsai-like to make one tree the size of two?

I think I misunderstood you with my response. Are you asking why am I making two trees, as in the two separate trunks or two trees, as in upper section and buried lower section? I guess it's really the same either way.

I had planned to treat both trunks as one tree, but that may change. The movement and thickness of the sub trunks don't really meld well in my opinion. This tree originally had a much thicker main trunk that died, so now the design isn't really working anymore. The aerials were a way to also obscure some of those flaws.

This tree was always destined to be a guinea pig, so I'm not too worried about any outcomes yet. I got a much bigger one this winter (it was a rehab project) so I'm beating this one up while I wait on my other one to get stronger.

 

[cbroad]

Separated the air layer this afternoon. From start to finish, it took about 27 days.



Sphagnum and perlite cleaned out:


High roots cleaned up. The 3rd thinner trunk will stay as a sacrifice to hopefully thicken the base a bit.


Roots spread out, planted on top of a piece of plastic with a thing layer of soil on top.


Slightly over potted, complete with shitty guy wiring:

 

[cbroad]

As you can see from the last post, I over potted the layer with the wire still wrapped around the trunk.

The wire started biting in pretty hard and I had to do something about it. So basically I was forced to repot it after less than a month; I knew this was going to happen and I still did it anyways...

At least this will buy me a little time before the next repot... Repotted on the 13th: