LittleDingus
Omono
I'm going to track these two plantings together because they are planted on 2 halves of the same "rock" This first post will discuss planting #1. There will be a follow up post for planting #2.
I've always loved rocks. Gemstones, semiprecious stones, tumbled stone, jaspers, granites, quartzes, etc...One thing I've seen many times in various gift shops is a wire tree wrapped on top of a geode. These are often sold as "bonsai on crystal" and always catch my eye. So, I thought: why not try one for realsies!
The vision I have is of a banyan style tree growing over a cathedral cut geode so the geode looks like a cave. The banyan would be some sort of ficus with thick tuberous roots wrapping the geode looking like they were drawing their power from the mystical stone. The tree's canopy would lean out over the entrance of the cave and drop aerial roots partially obscuring the opening...a little Indiana Jones in the deep jungle vibe. Maybe not a traditional "bonsai" image, but all the same techniques apply to building it!
In the spring of 2019, I decided I'd give this project a go and try to use willow leaf ficus as the tree. I picked up a 4" pot from the local nursery and started growing it out. In the spring of 2020, I picked up 3 more for cheap to have something to play with. The 3 younger trees were community potted and had grown quite well over the summer. They had come into the house for the winter about 6 weeks ago. As they've made the adjustment to indoors well and haven't dropped any leaves, I decided to break them into their own pots and see if I could work the roots a bit. I was planning on continuing to grow them out for another year or two before trying to put them on a rock.
I was very happy with their growth over the summer. After unpotting them, I was less happy with the tuberous roots that had formed as well! The roots were so fleshy there was no way they could be fit over anything. So, I made some decisions. Two of the trees I replanted in the community pot to continue to grow out for now.
For the third one, I figured if I was going to have to trim all its roots off to get it onto a rock at some point in the future anyway, I may as well have a go at trimming them and fitting them onto a rock now. Then at least any new growth would be "in place". I mean, if the tree has to grow somewhere...it may as well grow in what I hope is its forever home I did think about being a good little horticulturalist and waiting until spring, but the reality is that I am so swamped with activities in the spring that it would have been summer before I got to this. May as well do it now...it's a ficus...chances are good it will take the abuse!
Here is the tree I selected with all it's roots hacked off
I'm only a little worried about it surviving. It is inside for the winter, but it's in a bright room. If it looks like it's starting to go the wrong direction, I have lights I can add. My bigger concern is that the room it will be kept in is cooler than I would like for growing roots.
For the rock, it took me over a year to find a proper geode. Large geodes can be expensive! And small ones don't have the presence! About two months ago I finally happened upon an Etsy shop that had quartz geodes of decent sizes at decent prices. I was really hoping for a citrine for the oranges and browns but they are more pricey than I wanted to experiment on! The quartz geode I found is a milky white with lots of small crystal faces...it glistens nicely in the sun! The size...about 8" across...was just about perfect for what I'm envisioning! The shop I bought it from cuts geodes in half and sells the pair together...so I ended up with 2 geode halves to play with.
Here is the tree where I hope to perch it on one half of the geode.
I didn't have enough hands to get pictures of the rest of the process What I did, though, was soak some stranded sphagnum moss and pack it around the base of the tree and down the natural channels in the rock where I'm hoping roots will grow. I tried to leave places I didn't want roots to grow as bare rock to discourage growth there. I then wrapped it firmly with plastic wrap.
The end result:
The tree fit most solidly leaning way out over the front of the geode face. That's good in that I want to drop some aerial roots out that way anyway. I'll leave it like this for now. We'll see if the tree survives my abuse. If it does, there are some branches I can wire and some cuts I can make to start evening out the canopy over the rock. I don't know how feasible it is to graft onto ficus roots but a grafted second trunk might be a future option as well.
I've always loved rocks. Gemstones, semiprecious stones, tumbled stone, jaspers, granites, quartzes, etc...One thing I've seen many times in various gift shops is a wire tree wrapped on top of a geode. These are often sold as "bonsai on crystal" and always catch my eye. So, I thought: why not try one for realsies!
The vision I have is of a banyan style tree growing over a cathedral cut geode so the geode looks like a cave. The banyan would be some sort of ficus with thick tuberous roots wrapping the geode looking like they were drawing their power from the mystical stone. The tree's canopy would lean out over the entrance of the cave and drop aerial roots partially obscuring the opening...a little Indiana Jones in the deep jungle vibe. Maybe not a traditional "bonsai" image, but all the same techniques apply to building it!
In the spring of 2019, I decided I'd give this project a go and try to use willow leaf ficus as the tree. I picked up a 4" pot from the local nursery and started growing it out. In the spring of 2020, I picked up 3 more for cheap to have something to play with. The 3 younger trees were community potted and had grown quite well over the summer. They had come into the house for the winter about 6 weeks ago. As they've made the adjustment to indoors well and haven't dropped any leaves, I decided to break them into their own pots and see if I could work the roots a bit. I was planning on continuing to grow them out for another year or two before trying to put them on a rock.
I was very happy with their growth over the summer. After unpotting them, I was less happy with the tuberous roots that had formed as well! The roots were so fleshy there was no way they could be fit over anything. So, I made some decisions. Two of the trees I replanted in the community pot to continue to grow out for now.
For the third one, I figured if I was going to have to trim all its roots off to get it onto a rock at some point in the future anyway, I may as well have a go at trimming them and fitting them onto a rock now. Then at least any new growth would be "in place". I mean, if the tree has to grow somewhere...it may as well grow in what I hope is its forever home I did think about being a good little horticulturalist and waiting until spring, but the reality is that I am so swamped with activities in the spring that it would have been summer before I got to this. May as well do it now...it's a ficus...chances are good it will take the abuse!
Here is the tree I selected with all it's roots hacked off
I'm only a little worried about it surviving. It is inside for the winter, but it's in a bright room. If it looks like it's starting to go the wrong direction, I have lights I can add. My bigger concern is that the room it will be kept in is cooler than I would like for growing roots.
For the rock, it took me over a year to find a proper geode. Large geodes can be expensive! And small ones don't have the presence! About two months ago I finally happened upon an Etsy shop that had quartz geodes of decent sizes at decent prices. I was really hoping for a citrine for the oranges and browns but they are more pricey than I wanted to experiment on! The quartz geode I found is a milky white with lots of small crystal faces...it glistens nicely in the sun! The size...about 8" across...was just about perfect for what I'm envisioning! The shop I bought it from cuts geodes in half and sells the pair together...so I ended up with 2 geode halves to play with.
Here is the tree where I hope to perch it on one half of the geode.
I didn't have enough hands to get pictures of the rest of the process What I did, though, was soak some stranded sphagnum moss and pack it around the base of the tree and down the natural channels in the rock where I'm hoping roots will grow. I tried to leave places I didn't want roots to grow as bare rock to discourage growth there. I then wrapped it firmly with plastic wrap.
The end result:
The tree fit most solidly leaning way out over the front of the geode face. That's good in that I want to drop some aerial roots out that way anyway. I'll leave it like this for now. We'll see if the tree survives my abuse. If it does, there are some branches I can wire and some cuts I can make to start evening out the canopy over the rock. I don't know how feasible it is to graft onto ficus roots but a grafted second trunk might be a future option as well.