are these too ficus' the same sub species and can they be grafted together?

thailand-steve

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i just found a lovely, what i assume to be a ficus microcarpa with a 8"ish base and lovely taper

banyan10.jpg

the problem is, as you can see there are no branches low down. i could lop the top off and hope that some branches develop but i'd like to give nature a kick start.

i have several other, what i also assume to be microcarpa but although the leaf is identical, the coloration on the truck and branch is slightly different and also the growth pattern of the branches is very different.
banyan10a.jpg this is the branch from the tree above, and here is a cutting from one of my other trees
cuttings1.jpg

the branches on the 2nd tree are straight wheres on the first tree are all kinds of shapes.

do you think these are the same trees?

if not, do you think i could thread graft one of those cuttings onto the trunk in the first pic?

if not, i think cutting a branch of the first tree, rooting it then thread grafting it back onto itself would be the obvious thing to do but because none of these branches are straight they would be impossible to tread through a hole?

what do you think i should do?

thanks

UPDATE:

i guess one option is the take the top off, remove the middle section and graft the top on to the base like in this example
http://www.bonsaihunk.us/ficusforum/FicusTechniques/FigTechnique49.html
 
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It looks like the first two pictures are Ficus Benjamina, the last one I would guess is Ficus Retusa.

I wouldn't bother grafting Retusa on Benjamina or vice versa as you won't be getting a smaller leaf or finer branching.

Cheng cheng Kung has some of the best Ficus period. He grafts in green island (or something similar) towards the end of the branches on his large microcarpa.

The final size of your tree will alter your grafting approach. At any rate I would highly recommend using Green Island Ficus, Dwarf Burt davi, or Too Little to graft into your stock. However, with that large of a trunk you could still make a nice bonsai after working the original leaves down.
 

Jason_mazzy

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take the first one and graft willow leaf on it. might look awesome.
 

thailand-steve

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thanks for your replies,

to newworldbonsai, you wrote 'I wouldn't bother grafting Retusa on Benjamina or vice versa as you won't be getting a smaller leaf or finer branching.' the reason i am interested in grafting a Retusa on Benjamina is because i have many straight, rooted Retusa cuttings which would be great scion material for thread grafts. also, i think Retusa buds back better than Benjamina as per below. do you think a graft between the 2 would take?

also, i have been emailing Jerry Meislik (very helpful guy) and got this reply:

"
The tree is benjamina which is unreliable as far as breaking back vigorously.
My usual approach with this type of raw material is to get it as healthy as possible. Right now it shows fairly open growth and not overly leafed. Suggesting it was not grown in full
sunlight. So repot if needed, fertilize heavily, full sun and get the tree really leafy and pumping and then cut the trunk back to say 3 feet tall if you plan on the bonsai being 1.5 feet in height when completed. Hope for lots of breaks to get branches down low where you need them.
Another plan is to approach graft a number of branches to the lower part of the tree. Once these have taken you can shorten the tree back. Again I would start by getting the tree more vigorously growing.
See http://www.bonsaihunk.us/info/FicusBenj.html
"

he's spot on about the tree, i found it in the back of the nursery, forgotten and drowning in other trees so very little sunlight and totally outgrown its pot. i've already re potted it in a big grow bag and put it in a nice sunny spot. its all rain and sun here in phuket at the moment so i expect it to grow much greener very soon.

on a side note, i wish someone would posts detailed photos of the different types of ficus for easy identification for horticulturally challenged people like myself. maybe i'll see if Jerry Meislik could add one to his ficus forum.
 
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thailand-steve

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update: i ask the above question to Jerry Meislik and he replied

"Grafting its own branches is a good idea but you will need the tree a lot stronger. I usually use approach grafts as these are the simplest and most successful for new grafters. I do not do thread grafts but they are quite simple to do.
I don't know if you would be successful with these grafts on benjamina. I don't do cross species grafts or even grafts from the same species as the bark often will not match. I always take material from the same plant, grow cuttings by rooting them and use these for grafts.
Jerry"

i'll just sit and wait for a while (not usually my thing really) and let the tree fill out a bit.

i'll post pics of the progress when i start grafting
 

SU2

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[TL;DR: Can I thread-graft Microcarpa branches onto Benjamina stock? Does a thinner/thicker scion branch result in faster/slower 'take/set' times, and are there any other things I can do to speed a solid grafting? I'm imagining that, horticulturally, to get the graft to take that it'd be beneficial to do anything that'd help the cambium 'set' IE things like drilling a *very* precise hole (even a tapered hole if the branch warrants it) and then putting a dab of epoxy on the scion's center as it starts entering the hole so that it really sets in-place and never gets jostled as I imagine the cambium-merging is absurdly delicate in the early phases, am also planning to pull the scion through the hole just a bit too-far, then gently rough-up the bark (smooth strokes w/ a very sharp blade, won't crush much cambium!) of the scion-branch right where it'd be in-contact with the cut-cambium of the thread-graft-hole! Still uncertain if bigger/smaller branches are easier/harder though, have never grafted/layered before :p ]

I figured to revive this thread instead of make a new one of the such a similar nature!!!

I've got 3 ficus (2 benjamina's, 1 microcarpa, the latter is small and the B's are giants at least 5" trunks on either) and am hoping to know something for sure before proceeding- is it essentially the same exact process & results if, when thread-grafting scions through my Ficus.B's trunking, if I used Microcarpa scions instead of Benjamina scions?
20190227_163213.jpg

Was having a hell of a time setting-up the two large, in-grow-box Benjamina's for a perfect orientation to set the thread graft, and still hadn't figured-out how I'd be maneuvering the branch into the hole when the scion branch from that thing would be a 1/2" thick branch coming from a giant trunk in a large box!

20190227_163321.jpg

God it'll be so much easier if I can just graft the microcarpa branches onto it, my microcarpa is smaller and it'd be straightforward to set its box on the substrate of the 'recipient tree', nevermind that its leaves are a more attractive darker green than the lighter, sometimes almost-faded green of ficus.B's..

Thanks a ton for any guesses on this one, spent the longest time figuring out what to make-of / do-with my in ground 'niwaki' ficus.b, was always a 'dog' of a tree to me that I just couldn't throw out but disliked, it's nice to know that I'll be getting 2 solid bonsai from it if this all goes well (the top portion, where it's been trained as cascade, is simultaneously getting air-layered off the trunk, so it'll be its own tree unless I try to approach-graft it back onto the newly-made bonsai that was once its base (the trunking that gets the scion via thread-graft)

Nice base on the first one. If it were mine, I'd lop of the top and see what branches popped out before I bothered grafting.
The first/big one looks like a Benjamina, in which case you definitely don't want to do that (my first-ever trunk-chop saw me ruining my favorite topiary Benjamina, apparently they're unique amongst ficus cultivars in their hesitation to back-bud) That's not to say they never back-bud, they certainly do, but trunk-chopping and planning on it like a bougie/crape/BC/etc would be very very risky (and I'm in FL...)
 

Forsoothe!

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I can't remember the last time I saw a grafted tree that didn't look grafted. People who do it for a living create crappy-looking stock by the gross, so unless you are blessed, forget it. Self-ed thread grafts are a different story, but you don't seem to have branch materials available. I have a bunch of trees in my landscape that looked OK at the time of purchase, but which had different growth rates. Most often, slower-growing or dwarf scion on robust roots gets ugly, muy pronto. Different/mismatched bark always looks strange and draws the eye. Lop off the top and pray for back budding. Death is preferable to grafts.
 

SU2

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I can't remember the last time I saw a grafted tree that didn't look grafted. People who do it for a living create crappy-looking stock by the gross, so unless you are blessed, forget it. Self-ed thread grafts are a different story, but you don't seem to have branch materials available. I have a bunch of trees in my landscape that looked OK at the time of purchase, but which had different growth rates. Most often, slower-growing or dwarf scion on robust roots gets ugly, muy pronto. Different/mismatched bark always looks strange and draws the eye. Lop off the top and pray for back budding. Death is preferable to grafts.

Thanks for the thorough reply! Just to be sure I'm understanding you though, Microcarpa *would* work right? And re it looking grafted, not to sound pompous but I'm just really not worried about that, the base is so gnarly that I could rough it up to "flaw-to-feature" the area *if* my general approach/intuition doesn't work- that's that I can definitely grow-out a scion-branch as a primary to the point where it's grown-out enough that it's hid the fact it was thread-grafted, at least to most viewers (here in FL these things have a great enviro for fast, vigorous growth and are easily one of my fastest species, on top of that they're in the best sun-spot / in great substrate / heavily fed & pH-maintained etc etc, I fully expect strong fusing and 'merging/flow' of the scion into the parent in like 1.5-2yrs, they just grow so damn fast here!!)

Self-ed thread grafts are a different story, but you don't seem to have branch materials available.
This confuses me, I thought that, so long as it's Benjamina, that it doesn't really matter which particular specimen it is? Are you saying this growth-mismatch occurs when grafting microcarp's onto benji's or are you saying it occurs in *all* grafts with the sole exception of identical-DNA scions (ie self-threading it or layering something from it that you then use as threading scion)? Because the microcarpa-as-scion(s) idea just came to me, don't gotta change much if that's a no-go, but the base idea of (literally) tying those two large ficus.B containers together (for sturdiness) and threading one of the styrofoam'd ficus' ~1/3" thick branches through the half-deadwood base of the tall ficus B in the cylindrical container, that's the general idea and definitely want to know if you think there could still be risk grafting benjamina onto benjamina *but* from different parent-plant (ie both benjamina's but different DNA)

Thanks a ton for the reply it's really appreciated!! :)
 

Forsoothe!

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I think, but don't know, that any fig on any fig would work. The mismatch of growth would occur between 'Too Little' and the larger benjamina. Many fig are really big trees, even Burtt Davii with small leaves still gets very big in the wild, so they could "fit" with each other. You might consider an approach graft in your climate it could be pretty speedy.
 
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Forsoothe!

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Mulling this over, it occurs to me that if you had a wide enough pot you could slip-pot both scion & root stock tightly next to each other for an approach graft. It wouldn't have to look pretty, and the scion contributor could be sitting high and crooked or whatever pose would do the trick, but you could get real-l-y-y close and support a bigger implant for as long as it takes to look like it's growing well? Regardless of the ultimate attitude of the finished product, temporary repotting would allow you to juxtapose the two at an angle that would be most beneficial to the process instead of being hostage to two properly planted, upright trees? It could look really dumb and make you look like genius on the loose... Take pictures!
 

Hyn Patty

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Here is another option. Do as said and get the tree really super healthy and growing well with feeding, full sun etc as stated. Then take /cuttings/ and get them rooted, which is stupid easy with ficus generally. Then you can put the whips up against the older trunk and even wrap them this way and that to crisscross and wrap them snugly with a strip of cloth. As the tree grows they will bind and fuse to the trunk rapidly and the tops of the cuttings can become your new branches. This works great with the ficus because trees in this family often send down aerial roots when older which in turn fuse to the trunk anyway for those awesome crisscross patterns we love. It's also a great way to thicken up your ficus fast. Lots of commercial growers put several cuttings into the same pot and wrap them up to bind into a single thicker trunk. Over time they fuse together and if you didn't use some obvious pattern like a braid, it can look very nice - and they can be very fast growing if you take good care.
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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@Hyn Patty is right, @SU2 - you are in Florida, in the Tampa area Ficus grow like a bad weed for 9 or 10 months out of the year. You could easily start a batch of cuttings in 2 or 4 inch pots, much easier to position and move around. You can then graft them where ever you need. If you started cuttings in April, by August they would be big enough and well enough rooted that you could use them as scions. It is not that difficult, nor would it slow you down, in fact, using thinner scions the fusion is quicker.

@SU2 - Read again the quotes from Jerry Meislik in the post. Read his comments for detail. The reason he suggests only ''same to same'' is that the bark of different species varies a great deal. You need the bark to match to have a believable tree.

Yes, in all probability just about any ficus species can be grafted to just about any other. Key for creating a believable tree - matching growth rates and matching bark textures.

Ficus benjamina - almost white bark, more like an aspen, birch or white bark eucalyptus than any of the other Ficus.

F. retusus - dark gray bark, smooth to somewhat pebbly. I'm in the great frigid north, I don't see many old Ficus to have expert opinion on their bark color and texture. You are in FLorida, visit a few places and take notes on bark texture and color.

Willow leaf - The form distributed by Jim Smith & Weigerts, has medium to lighter gray-brown bark, relatively smooth to somewhat flakey and stringy, think a little like shag bark hickory, but light brown. THe form of willowleaf from San Cristobal, Chiapas, Mexico has much heavier brown bark, that gets stringy and peels in long strips, again like shag bark hickory. The two forms ''might'' be the same species, might be different species. The Mexican provenance form has not been documented forming fruit yet, so no taxonomy can be done without the fruit. It is the comparison of fruit that would nail down species identity.

So you can see, the above species, if grafted on to each other, would look ''a hot mess'', and bonsai is all about appearance creating an image.

Last, you are in Florida, Ficus grow well. I would think just giving both these trees one or two 8 month growing seasons of full sun, ample water, and lots of fertilizer, with no pruning or fiddling with them, should give you enough growth and vigor that the following growing season you could cut them back to just the part(s) of the trunks you want to keep and they would explode with back buds to give you branches where ever you need them. It take a season, maybe two, of unchecked growth to really build up the vigor.

A weak tree does not respond to bonsai techniques. A strong, vigorous tree will give good to explosively good response to bonsai techniques.

Ficus are almost weed trees in their ease of culture. This is why you rarely hear about grafting being necessary. This is why fusion techniques are not viewed as necessary. In Tampa Florida you can take a pencil thin cutting and end up with a trunk as thick as my arm in less than five years. They grow fast. IF you let them alone long enough to grow, and give them sun, water, fertilizer, warmth and a little time.
 
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