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I may be wrong, but having owned both I feel almost certain @Devilrocker's plant is some variety of c. ovata. The leaf shape and growth habit, among other things, are different. There are cultivars of c. ovata that have quite compact growth. Everything else you've said strikes me as right. I...

My big cork bark elm killed off a bottom branch this year. The branch was a bit weak anyway, so it wasn't entirely unexpected, but it was disappointing. Anyway, I have heard that these trees in particular will pull resources from lower branches if you let the top get too strong. That is...

What a great and obscure phrase. I never knew.

This is where I would go. Remove everything else, cut just above the first node, and let the upper bud extend. If you do it after the tree has leafed out and hardened off (June-ish?) then the growth from that bud will be restrained. Later in the year, you wire some movement into that and then...

The root spread on the curvy one is to die for!

It will take a lot of energy to grow a new shoot like that, and to close what will be a good sized wound after you chop. My 2 cents is that it would be better to do that growing/healing with a full tank of gas, after having had the chance to grow it out for a while.

My observations have not been very scientific - I combined a couple of experiences that could have been coincidental with anecdotes that I read online, including here. One thought, though, if you are using a weak dilution of the MG (something like 1/2 or 1/4 of recommended for containers), that...

Hello, Figgie! First off, congratulations on saving the tree! Black scale can be mean AF and I hate them with a passion. No, do not prune this tree. That thing should get to grow into a big bushy shrub before you touch it with pruners. Trim it now and it will probably struggle along for...

Not sure how other people are fertilizing BRT, but I skip my BRT any time I am fertilizing my bonsai with chemical fertilizer. Once, after I hit it with chemical fert, it had a hissy fit and dropped all its leaves. But I had to do it again before I caught on (slow learner). Ever since then, the...

Intriguing! Are the screens shorter than the frame, so you can "shake" them?

You could be right and it might be too late, but I have a Korean hornbeam with that same problem that I waited to address, and still had some luck with flat-cutting under the root and covering with soil.

C&T, years ago, used to have a relationship with the club due to a couple of past club presidents working there. Those individuals did a lot of work to establish the bonsai department, but after they left the quality went down and the prices went up. The relationship with the club also stalled...

Hello! I suggest looking for nurseries near you and checking them out. You would do yourself a favor by reading up first on how to select good nursery stock. Early on, I wasted a lot of time and money on truly terrible material. Some ideas for nurseries to look at would be Glover Nursery and...

I am not going to defend or condemn the response, but offer my thought on the source of the disagreement. I believe that, when @johnl445 mentioned the BIN price, @Gabler understood the thrust of the question to be whether it would be a good buy. But the intent behind stating the price, I think...

This is turning out very nice. I hope it responds by sprouting by that branch that died.

Oh, for sure. My statement was a little vague! I just meant I would rotate them so that I would get to see them all. Even in my imaginary world where I get to put something like that in the living room, my wife still would not allow enough cabinets to hold all my ficus! 😄

You might have fewer watts going into your tent than I do (~400W-500W per 2x4x6 tent). Without my thermostat-controlled exhaust fans my trees would literally be toast. Not everybody will need it - like you said, people need to find what works for them. The one thing I think is essential in an...

Definitely not necessary. I grew ficus bonsai in my house, unenclosed, for several years and it was fine. Like you said, they just did not thrive. Here are my reasons for growing in a tent: Light - the high-intensity LEDs that I grow my tropicals under are very bright and harsh on the eyes...

But think about it...if you lay it on its side then you could build a platform, add another tent above it, and then you have 96sqft! Though watering the trees in the back might be tricky.

Grown out, cut back for a couple of seasons now. Almost killed it last year with a bad batch of osmocote. I like the way this is shaping up.

Cool idea. Maybe when I repot mine (thread), I can just pull it out of the pot and set it on some new substrate. I like it!

Your trees and garden are fantastic! I love the structure.

Hey there! So we are getting similar results within a few miles of each other. Our summer was pretty hot!

That is interesting. It really could be my soil mix. (Or water quality - mine has pretty high PH, around 7.6.) For soil, I have been using a lot of pumice and scoria, with some bark mixed in. Going forward, I have been thinking I will significantly increase the ratio of bark to inorganics in my...

Well, I settled on putting the tropicals in full sun this year. My observation, they did not do so great. Watering and fertilization was mostly the same as last year, when I had them under the polycarb roof and they grew pretty well. Leaf size and internode length were better in full sun, but...