Willow leaf ficus progression (Oct. 2012 - Jan. 2014)

I picked this up from Schley's Bonsai while on vacation in Florida back in 2012. This first picture is from the same day I bought it. I made sure to get a photo right away.


A 2012-10-13 17.22.19 by Charles_Willis, on Flickr

When I got home. I put it into a deep pot thinking it would help develop a good root system unaware that it was a bad idea.


B 2012-11-28 13.16.03 by Charles_Willis, on Flickr

After keeping it too wet I repotted it into a bonsai pot hoping it would develop roots better.


C 2012-11-28 15.43.36 by Charles_Willis, on Flickr

I pretty much just left it to grow to thicken the branches up through 2013. I put it outside in April and cut the branches back and wired it in May.


D 2013-05-01 by Charles_Willis, on Flickr

By August it had put on this much growth. The different pot was because it was knocked out of the other ceramic pot it was in (always wired your trees in!).


E 2013-08-01 by Charles_Willis, on Flickr

About a week ago I cut off some thick roots that had formed since the last repotting, cut back the roots to fit in the pot, and repotted into a mix of half pumice half lava rock. It started pushing buds on all the tips so tonight I reduced all the ends to two buds and wired it back into shape. The wiring job is pretty poor. I'm not used to copper wiring. It's much more difficult to flex, bend, and wrap than the equivalent aluminum. So here it is as of tonight.


Willow leaf ficus progression by Charles_Willis, on Flickr

I would like to show this at my clubs annual show this year. It's not great, but I'm happy with how it has survived my learning process. I'm thinking I'll repot it into a nice blue or green pot. Maybe get wild and try a yellow pot. I think a rounded rectangular pot would be good if it had soft colors. Perhaps a soft oval would be good too.

This tree was put into a new pot in anticipation of showing it this August. Then it caught a case of scale so I sprayed with insecticidal soap, scraped the bugs off, repeated, defoliated (leaving growing tips on branches). It's starting to push a lot of new leaves now. I need to wire it a little and selectively prune before it gets out of control.

KennedyMarx said:

This tree was put into a new pot in anticipation of showing it this August. Then it caught a case of scale so I sprayed with insecticidal soap, scraped the bugs off, repeated, defoliated (leaving growing tips on branches). It's starting to push a lot of new leaves now. I need to wire it a little and selectively prune before it gets out of control.

Click to expand...

This guys has some good movement! Keep us updated once it leafs out. Do you grow inside mostly or do you mix inside and out?

Edit: Sorry, you already answered my question in your post.

Thanks for sharing! Nice job. I bought one from him as well a month or so ago in planning ahead to have something to look at and play with over the winter. Those are the only ficuses that I can somewhat envision looking like a 'real' tree in a realistic period of time. I'll post mine at some point to see what you think and for pointers.

Cute little tree with potential. Thanks for posting it.

Nice progression!

Eric

Here's a quick update on this one. I defoliated and wired the branches today. I needed a smaller gauge of wire for some of the branches, but I worked with what I had. It's really hard to get a good 2D picture of a 3D structure.

Like I said, I'd like to show this at my club's show in August. I think the timing is good for the work. It will have leafed out and branches will have started to set by the time I want to show it. I know it's not some great specimen, but I don't think it's bad for how much experience I had when I got it.

It is getting there

Reminds me that I should work on mine! Neat job wiring, nice tree. To me, the bottom branches are too straight, particularly the right one. Looks like they had a bit of a curve before the wiring, take another look and see what you think. They should have as many bends as you can place into them while they are still flexible, as when you take the wire off, and it relaxes you get at least some curve out of it. I find that they just don't hold bends all that well, so I overachieve.

Thanks, Neli.

The branches do look very straight in the photo, but they move back and forth more than up and down. I'll look at it again and see what I can do. Thank you for the suggestion, Judy.

KennedyMarx said:

Thanks, Neli.

The branches do look very straight in the photo, but they move back and forth more than up and down. I'll look at it again and see what I can do. Thank you for the suggestion, Judy.

Click to expand...

A lot of mine suffer from the same problem and it's not just that they're straight, but that the branches lack taper and ramification close to the trunk. All the ramification starts toward the ends of the branch. I thought I was making progress early on, but as I gained experience I've had to basically start over with many trees to correct this issue. It took me forever to learn this lesson for some reason (I'm a slow learner, I guess). My advice? Let the branches grow long and strong - wire the shoots while they are young - allow them to extend until the branch is sufficiently thick - then chop back to where you want the first branch. For a shohin, it should be quite close to the trunk - less than an inch or so I would guess. When you chop back strong growth with this kind of tree you'll get plenty of branching wherever you cut the branch. Pick two lateral buds, cut off the rest, and repeat the steps above. Let the branches grow long and chop back. You'll put on a bunch of wood to add a 1/2" of branch, but this is the only way to create ramification, branch density, and taper. Avoid defoliating and pinching until your main branches and tertiary ramification is in place. These techniques will create ramification at the branch ends, not close to the tree where you need it.

Scott

Here it is leafed out. It needs an upper layer of side branches to look more full. I have a couple branches forming that will be wired to fill it out. I plan on reworking the base next year. I think I'll make a wire tourniquet in the middle of the flair to get rid of the root cutting look.