Some Ficus Shohin Repottings

[nickbachman]

My Tiger Barks are waking up early this year, so I'm starting to the repot. The first one, I call the Peanut Butter Ficus (it'll make sense momentarily). It was purchased at a regular nursery and was growing next to a schefflera in the same pot. I found that it had large tuber roots under the soil, so last Spring I trunk chopped it and cut off the tubers flat at a wide point. In late Summer, I planted it on top of a 5" peanut butter jar lid. Going to be letting it run pretty wild this season to fatten up the roots. It looks good from a number of angles, with some pretty mean taper. 4" across the base at the widest, 5.5" tall. Will post a potted photo in a few weeks when there's some growth.

 

[nickbachman]

The next tree is one I got last year from @Redwood Ryan . I wired it all up last Spring and it was growing great, then we got a heatwave in LA while I was out of town for the weekend and this thing got toasted. Lost all its branches, but popped out some new buds all over. I let it grow wild for the rest of the season and just chopped it back. It's got some nice movement, and I hope to build the base more this year with some more unchecked growth. I planted it on top of a plastic disc to aid in root spread. It's about the same size as the last tree.

 

[nickbachman]

And the last one for now, a Root-Over-Rock I chopped and started last Summer. It looks like it might have some root rot, hopefully I can get it worked out with a drier mix this year. Going to let this one really run this year too, to thicken up the roots. The roots/rock were wrapped in florists tape for the past season, and were re-wrapped before planting again. This one also got zapped in the heatwave last summer and lost a lot of its branches, but it's coming back. Thinned out the branching and wired some primaries, while leaving some sacrifices to grow wild.

 

[Redwood Ryan]

Why does this tempt me to get back into this hobby????

 

[sorce]

Why does this tempt me to get back into this hobby????

I fucking knew that was coming!

Welcome back bro....

Sorce

 

[aml1014]

My Tiger Barks are waking up early this year, so I'm starting to the repot. The first one, I call the Peanut Butter Ficus (it'll make sense momentarily). It was purchased at a regular nursery and was growing next to a schefflera in the same pot. I found that it had large tuber roots under the soil, so last Spring I trunk chopped it and cut off the tubers flat at a wide point. In late Summer, I planted it on top of a 5" peanut butter jar lid. Going to be letting it run pretty wild this season to fatten up the roots. It looks good from a number of angles, with some pretty mean taper. 4" across the base at the widest, 5.5" tall. Will post a potted photo in a few weeks when there's some growth.

All are very nice little shohin. I would've used a screw to secure this guy though.

Aaron

 

[nickbachman]

Thanks Aaron! I agree. I must say that when I wired it to the jar lid last year, it was sort of an impulsive move. I wasn't planning to use a tile type device, but saw that rigid plastic lid sitting in our recycling. Didn't have the proper screws on hand, so I had to improvise haha it's not pretty, but it works. I keep a wedge under the corner of the pot at all times to keep water from pooling on the lid.

 

[nickbachman]

Some explosive growth on the jar lid ficus! This is after chopping off much, much more rootage. Worked like a dream! Totally flat on the bottom, many radial roots and a lot of ariels. Now to work on some branch structure. Should make a nice multi trunk/apex tree.

 

[jason biggs]

looking awesome - strong root growth in a year and a bit...

 

[Redwood Ryan]

Very cool! How's my little guy doing?

 

[nickbachman]

Very cool! How's my little guy doing?

Thanks! He's doing very similarly to the little porker above. I let a low branch grow 3-4 feet over the whole season and it fattened up the base very nicely.

 

[amcoffeegirl]

What did you do to get root growth like that? Is it in a greenhouse? Nice work.

 

[nickbachman]

What did you do to get root growth like that? Is it in a greenhouse? Nice work.

No greenhouse, in fact it was out in the dry SoCal air. I started making my soil out of cheaper stuff I could get from the garden center. 3 parts pumice, 2 parts lava, 1 part (maybe less actually) fine orchid bark. It’s quire porous with a pretty big range in particle size. Fertilized well with osmocote, Iron Tone, and azomite. I also let them grow wild after the photos were taken. But they didn’t get bushy, just leggy.