Tiger bark ficus $3 clearance Jan 2020
- Thread starter SWfloirda
- Start date
SWfloirda
Chumono
SWfloirda
Chumono
cheap_walmart_art
Omono
Man I do love some tropical bonsai and I'm always so jealous of the growth rate you guys get in Florida.
I know, it's not fair. I need to move south.
cheap_walmart_art
Omono
They do great here during our summers. Winter is always a pain in the butt as I rotate through a terrarium to encourage ariel root growth during the winter. Way more cleaning than I would like but the results are always pretty good.
Agreed! I did get some better lights this year and the few ficus I have are doing really well, even the Willow Leaf, that normally has shed all of it's leaves by now.
cheap_walmart_art
Omono
I found putting my willow leaf ficus into the terrarium I use for fresh cuttings helped them to stay ...foliated?..throughout winter. Was pleasantly surprised at the active growth. Pain in the ass factor multiplied considerably though.
just.wing.it
Deadwood Head
Nice growth, you would probably get better performance out of your wires if you spaced your coils a little bit more.
SWfloirda
Chumono
Wires have been on for two months. I took them off today, I think I could’ve left them on another week or two but the ones on the smaller branches were cutting in a bit. I would repot but we are supposed to dip into the upper forties at night this weekend again. 
SWfloirda
Chumono
Popped a branch on the edge of the sacrifice chop scar, I’m hoping it helps healing it. 
SWfloirda
Chumono
The cutting is now 5 months old. Lots of circling roots and two figs. I pruned the roots pretty hard and repotted it in some used bonsai soil. In a week or two I’ll wire some movement in those low branches and prune them as well. Should make a nice sumo in a few years.
SWfloirda
Chumono
Here’s the cutting two weeks after repot. Never missed a beat. It’s even developing some surface roots.
SWfloirda
Chumono
And the mom. I’m going to let the apex run out a bit. See what happens.
Bonsai Nut
Nuttier than your average Nut
Some good stuff here!
(1) Use copper wire, or heavier gauge aluminum. Don't just use the wire to lay out the branches. Introduce random movement - up and down, left and right. Because the wire you are using is too thin for the task, you can't really bend the branch to your design, and it ends up looking like a straight sapling branch that was artificially bent down... versus an old gnarly branch on an old tree with lots of character.
(2) You are making lots of the correct decisions on your bar branches and your redundant branches, but you are making them too late. You want to eliminate them a little sooner, because otherwise you get knobs at the internodes and the trunk looks knobby instead of tapered.
(3) Before you start defoliating your tree to develop ramification, you need to ask yourself (a) is my trunk caliper where I want it and (b) are my primary branches good? You are getting some good caliper in the trunk and decent taper but your branches are probably too thick, and are in bad locations. With a tropical like this I would grow the trunk aggressively to develop caliper and taper, assuming that when you are happy with the trunk you will cut the branches off flush to the trunk and start branches anew. If you start defoliating too early, you are slowing down the growth and development of the tree to introduce ramification to branches that you are just going to cut off in the future.
(3) Because your tree is in early development, you don't really want it in a bonsai pot - even a plastic training pot. If you can't put it in the ground (because you live in an apartment, for example) put it in the widest container you can find that is still relatively shallow. You want the roots growing out, not down. You will turbo-charge your rate of growth and development.
(1) Use copper wire, or heavier gauge aluminum. Don't just use the wire to lay out the branches. Introduce random movement - up and down, left and right. Because the wire you are using is too thin for the task, you can't really bend the branch to your design, and it ends up looking like a straight sapling branch that was artificially bent down... versus an old gnarly branch on an old tree with lots of character.
(2) You are making lots of the correct decisions on your bar branches and your redundant branches, but you are making them too late. You want to eliminate them a little sooner, because otherwise you get knobs at the internodes and the trunk looks knobby instead of tapered.
(3) Before you start defoliating your tree to develop ramification, you need to ask yourself (a) is my trunk caliper where I want it and (b) are my primary branches good? You are getting some good caliper in the trunk and decent taper but your branches are probably too thick, and are in bad locations. With a tropical like this I would grow the trunk aggressively to develop caliper and taper, assuming that when you are happy with the trunk you will cut the branches off flush to the trunk and start branches anew. If you start defoliating too early, you are slowing down the growth and development of the tree to introduce ramification to branches that you are just going to cut off in the future.
(3) Because your tree is in early development, you don't really want it in a bonsai pot - even a plastic training pot. If you can't put it in the ground (because you live in an apartment, for example) put it in the widest container you can find that is still relatively shallow. You want the roots growing out, not down. You will turbo-charge your rate of growth and development.
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SWfloirda
Chumono
Thanks for taking the time to respond.
1. I was under the impression that copper wire was for trees that would have it on for a long time. This ficus bites into the wire in 30-45 days.
2. I noticed that, I was hoping the fast growth rate would make up for it.
3. When I started work on it today I had no intentions of defoliation, my inner Edward Scissorshands took over. Eventually I was hoping that it would direct energy into that little sprout on the lower trunk. I don’t want the tree to get huge and was thinking I could keep some of these branches without chop scars.
3 part two. Finding wide and shallow pots is a challenge. I don’t live in a an apartment, everything is in 8-10 hours of full sun this time of the year. I would plant it on a tile but my yard is made up of sand and nematodes. All of my ficus trees grow nicely but either have long circling roots or a straight down escape root. I have thought about ordering Anderson flats but I’ve got dozens of trees not hundreds. I wish I could order 5 or 10.
1. I was under the impression that copper wire was for trees that would have it on for a long time. This ficus bites into the wire in 30-45 days.
2. I noticed that, I was hoping the fast growth rate would make up for it.
3. When I started work on it today I had no intentions of defoliation, my inner Edward Scissorshands took over. Eventually I was hoping that it would direct energy into that little sprout on the lower trunk. I don’t want the tree to get huge and was thinking I could keep some of these branches without chop scars.
3 part two. Finding wide and shallow pots is a challenge. I don’t live in a an apartment, everything is in 8-10 hours of full sun this time of the year. I would plant it on a tile but my yard is made up of sand and nematodes. All of my ficus trees grow nicely but either have long circling roots or a straight down escape root. I have thought about ordering Anderson flats but I’ve got dozens of trees not hundreds. I wish I could order 5 or 10.
SWfloirda
Chumono
Also, I have been experimenting and learning along my way, always had it in the back of my mind I may have to start over.
SWfloirda
Chumono
The mother plant is losing some health. Easier to explain in a video. I’m still working on being microphone shy.
SWfloirda
Chumono
SWfloirda
Chumono
The first tree.
