[Dingus] Willow Leaf Ficus (ficus nerifolia) #1 & #2

[LittleDingus]

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.

 

[LittleDingus]

This post is planting #2...the other half of the same "rock".

The tree for this planting was the one I had always been growing for this project. I got it as a 4" "pre-bonsai" from my local nursery in their bonsai section back in the spring of 2019. Here's what it looked like today:



And here is the rock I'm planting it on:



This tree has always been shallow planted. I had also groomed the roots to be intentionally all one sided. I had always intended to plant this tree leaning out over the face of a geode so knew I didn't need roots there.



Since this tree was shallow potted, the roots are a little more usable than the community pot siblings. It still doesn't really fit though Its too flat and the roots too plump to bend exactly where I wanted them.



That fat root on the right split on my as I tried to overbend it back to the contour of the rock. I ended up trimming it back to the break. Once I did that, thought, the roots did fit much more nicely where I wanted them.



I packed the base of the trunk and the natural contours of the geode with wet stranded sphagnum moss and wrapped with plastic wrap as I did the first planting.



The rock was them set on top of a 14" plastic drip tray with drainage holes and filed with NAPA 8822. The edges around the geode were packed with sphagnum similar to planting 1. One this planting, some of the roots tips do actually make it out of the wrap and into the pot.

As this was the intended planting (the other one being a "freebee" because the geode came as a split pair), it is being placed in a warmer room and under lights. It will still get a few hours of direct sun (well, through glass) each day, but not as many hours as its sibling. The lights are on for 14 hours a day though...and it's in a room that averages 10F warmer. In short...this is that favorite child, the other is the tolerated child

 

[LittleDingus]

This is the #2 planting. The #1 planting is still alive. Maybe I'll update on it later...

This planting gets better treatment and is easier to poke at...so I did

It took almost 2 months, but it defoliated itself after my abuse back in November. I don't blame it. But the sun is climbing and more heat is coming in through the window it is in...even though it is 9F outside right now, the thermometer I have in that window is reading a cozy 77F mostly from solar heating It's warm enough that the tree is budding out.



I tipped its rock over and there has been root growth too.



Seeing the roots underneath, and feeling that the tree seemed somewhat stable on the rock on it's own...not attached yet, but stable on its perch...I went ahead and pulled off the binding to poke around.



After pulling off some of the shagnum, there were some thicker roots where I ultimately want them...and some finer roots forming where I ultimately would like roots as well!

Pulling out the sphagnum gave me the chance to fine tune some of the roots a bit and to repack them so they would be tighter to the rock as they, hopefully, continue to grow. I then repacked the sphagnum around the outside of the roots...but I did not replace sphagnum where I don't want roots to grow.



I draped a mound of sphagnum over the front edge hoping some of those finer roots would find their way that way over the next few months as well

And here is the tree wrapped up again...but wrapped more loosely this time.



I need to go through the top and prune out some extra branches at the knuckles as well. I didn't do that at this time. My hope is this tree will fully leaf out over the next month or two. By then it will start getting warm enough to think about the move back outside. Sometime closer to when it moves back outside I'll go through and prune out the extra branches at the knuckles, any twigs that died off and maybe add some wire to start pulling a branch or two out over the front of the geode face more.

I don't care for how straight that lowest section of trunk is either...I haven't decided to do anything about that or not yet. I want to see the tree firmly attached first. Given what growth I've gotten over 2 months of winter without any leaves, that should happen this summer no problem!

 

[LittleDingus]

Update on rock #1

This is the one I ended up chopping all the roots off and just planting what was essentially a cutting with a very stubby base!

It managed to hold onto some leaves all winter. Now that it is back outside in the heat, it's starting to put on some new growth!



I went ahead and removed the wrap to peak at what was going on underneath.



Hard to see from the pictures...but starting to get some new roots

Everything is all wrapped back up and set back outside for another few months now. It's looking like this guy is going to live! It's definitely further behind than planting #2...I'm fine with that. I have not been very kind to it!

 

[LittleDingus]

Update on planting #2

This is the one I'm really hoping will work!

It's leafed out pretty well now



I bought a branch bender to try and put a kink in the trunk. It worked...kinda. I wasn't very happy with the mechanics of the bender. It doesn't have quite the right kind of adjustments I wanted to get the bend I wanted from it. But it did work. I left it on too long and there are scars, but, oh well. I'm really hoping for a much thicker trunk some day so the scars should grow out...eventually. Given the type of bend I was able to manage, it really wasn't worth the effort

Given all the top growth, I went ahead and cut the wrap off to see if anything needed any adjustments.



The pictures aren't very useful...sorry The roots are adhering nicely in places though! I can pick up the rock by the tree trunk now. I'm not sure how long it would hold...but I could do it There were also some smaller roots here and there that I could tell were firmly attached to the rough surface.

There are roots in all directions...even on the right of the smooth face where I wanted a few roots dripping over...that are well into the pot now I tried to disturb those as little as I could.

I removed a little more sphagnum to hopefully keep the roots alive but channeled closer to where I would like them. There is going to be a hollow or two that I'll need to address at some point. Even so, it looks like I might be able to make a harsher cleanup of unwanted roots maybe in early August. That should leave plenty of time for recovery before it cools off too much and they need to come back inside for the winter. I'll peak again in August and decide then anyway.

I went ahead and wrapped everything back up and put it back out into the heat and humidity!



I'm quite happy with how this one is progressing!

 

[LittleDingus]

I was browsing through some of the pictures I took of planting #2 back in June and decided there were some things I didn't care for that were worth a second look. It's probably a month or so before I need to start thinking about bringing these guys in so I thought if I wanted to tackle some root issues, I can probably get away with them now rather than wait until next summer.

Specifically, I didn't care for how these roots seemed to be progressing.



My biggest concern was the fat root curving over and crossing the smaller roots underneath.

So, I fixed it



Which exposed some other root crossover issues...and a thicker root just hanging there where it would never adhere. So I fixed them



There was one other area that looked stupid to me.



This was actually a set of roots that formed all around the cut of the parent root. There were basically 2 layers of roots...some adhered...and some covering the adhered ones that weren't adhered to anything. I cut the top layer off.



I think these will need more work in the future as well. We'll see how they develop over the winter.

I decided that I would pack the root areas with shredded sphagnum but that I would not wrap them under plastic this time.



This week is still stupid hot here, but it should be cooling enough after that that the sphagnum shouldn't dry fully during the day. We'll see how that goes.

Sorry for the background, but the tree itself is nice and full and pleasing to look at these days



I'm actually looking forward to the winter now. These guys usually get wintered a big set of windows in the basement. The cooler temps and less light usually causes them to at least partially defoliate themselves. Then I'll get a better look at the canopy and where I need to fix some issues there. I know there are several spots where multiple branches leave from the same node that is starting to cause taper issues.

But...that's all for another time. Back into what remains of the summer sun for this guy!

 

[LittleDingus]

I'm pretty happy with the progress on my primary salicaria over geode tree thus far Here it is as it was moved indoors for the winter.



I recently found what I felt would be a great pot for this tree on ebay.



It was more expensive than I would have liked for a $15 (when I bought it) 3 year old tree...but it was pretty much exactly what I had envisioned for this tree from the start. It's a shallow 17" wide oval with darker earthy tones and a few filaments of teal glaze to accent the foliage. Its an ERIN pot if that means anything to anyone. I know a little of the history, but not much. I just buy pots...not study them...

The pot arrived this morning and we got final approval on our loan for a new 7 acre property in Illinois...so I thought I would celebrate and spend some time repotting a tree

I took some time to uncover the roots again and trim off all the little hairs and some of the crossing roots, etc...The roots continue to get nicer and are starting to thicken up again. I opted to leave much less of them covered after the repot.



Some are not attached but they should thicken more with time. Once they mold better into the new places I guided them, I can rough up the undersides a bit and hold them down a little firmer to get them to adhere.

The roots draped over the front have lengthened. I thinned them out a bit and left them covered so hopefully they'll thicken some more.

I put the geode at an angle and off to the side for interest.



That puts the tree too far to the left. The plan is to leave it for the winter now. It'll likely drop most/all of its foliage by spring. Hopefully it weathers the move well. Once it drops a lot of foliage, I'll look at hacking into the top to remove some whorls and start forming a more interesting canopy. My plan is to try for 2 main branches and pull one of them out over the right more. With luck, I can eventually get that one to drop an areal root or two. We're moving to the Chicago area where the growing season will be shorter and not as humid though...development form here on will be a little more challenging.

 

[Carol 83]

We're moving to the Chicago area

 

[LittleDingus]

Just a quick update...

I took this picture for another thread so, since I have it, I'll add it here



There are a few yellow leaves in there, but mostly nothing has changed over the winter. I'm a little surprised since these guys usually thin out quite a bit for me when brought indoors for the winter.

The few dangly roots draped over the front right of the geode have thickened a bit. I've uncovered them some to stop fine roots from forming where I don't want any. Come spring I think I'll be able to remove the rest of the sphagnum and expose the rest of the roots dangling over the front face.

These guys will make the move from KC (Zone 6) to Chicago (Zone 5) in two weeks. The new house is bright, but mostly east and northeast exposures. I doubt I'll get a decent light setup here in the spring so they may suffer for a few months until it warms enough to move them outside for the summer. I'm hoping to start setting some primary branches this season but there might be too much going on after the move. I like these guys enough I'll do what I can to keep them healthy anyway

 

[LittleDingus]

They seam to have taken the move in stride. The smaller of the two got separated from its pot (really just a drip tray) so it's just been chillin without any shoes under a makeshift light setup in the basement waiting for its chance to get outside



I need to get my supplies unpacked so I can get it back into something it can stretch out its roots in. I'd like to start getting this one in some kind of presentable shape and into a real pot either this year or next.

 

[LittleDingus]

This one is also holding in there rather well after the move.



It's been sitting under lights in front of a sliding glass door that gets direct morning sun for a few hours...not that that matters with all the clouds and rain we've had since moving in

I've been doing the two step with it though and it's been spending more and more time outside. I try to bring it in when it's expected to be in the low 40F range...but I've also forgotten it a night or two and it has seen temps down into the mid-30F range...oops! It's been managing it well. Some of the older, inner leaves have started turning and falling...but nothing significant yet.

I've been itching to work on this one this year! I've been trying to hold off until May...but since it's doing the 2-step and older foliage is starting to thin out...and I've been itching to do more than just water a tree! I went ahead and hacked into it



I got a couple of larger cutting out of it plus numerous smaller ones. I'm not set up yet to reliable manage clippings but I shoved a couple in the first pot I could find anyway.



Hopefully I don't forget about them and kill them!

One of the tasks I've been really itching to do is clean out the rest of the moss on this side of the rock.



I've been preferentially watering that side to help lengthen the more scraggly roots on that side. Even though it's been inside in the winter, the roots have lengthened into the soil under the rock and have thickened up a bit. I wanted to uncover them before they became too much of a tangled mess!

They were starting to get a bit tangled and ratty looking. It took me a bit of time to thin them out to something a little cleaner looking. In the end, I ended up with this:



The entire rock surface is now cleaned of moss. I'm pretty happy with how the roots have developed so far. They still look a bit "fuzzy" from bits of moss and dead root tips. I'll let the weather and growth do it's thing for the summer then take a close look if I need to do a better job of cutting out dead root ends and left over moss. My guess it it'll be fine by fall

I could have taken more foliage I guess...



but there are still some wounds on the roots I'd like to heal more and the "extra" foliage isn't in the way of my vision just yet. The interior is way opened up from what it was before. I expect it to fill in fully by fall again if I let it. I did apply some wire to open things up further. And I snipped all branches pointing down. I ended up with one big ugly scar from where I removed 2 large branches from a whorl that was swelling horribly. I don't usually cut paste ficus but I did cut paste that wound because it's now open directly to the sun. Plus, the tree was on the dry side so wasn't bleeding out much latex to protect itself...a sign I need to up my watering schedule!

Overall, I'm quite happy with where this tree is going. The serious folk will scoff...it has a ton of flaws! The first of which is the premise of growing a tree on a geode

But I really enjoy looking at it

 

[Toshi]

I love the look after the recent chop.

 

[jason biggs]

you have had a ton of growth for a cold climate - nice.

 

[LittleDingus]

you have had a ton of growth for a cold climate - nice.

Kansas City is pretty warm in the summer. I had a nice long growing season there. Plus it was humid enough to stay warm overnight. Nighttime temps are often upper 70F. That helps a lot, I think.

I've moved a zone colder now. I lose a couple months of growing season and summer nights are cooler here. More clouds and rain too...less full sun days. We'll see how it does this year.

 

[LittleDingus]

Yep...not as much growth on this one as I think I would have gotten in Kansas City with it's warmer nights and little longer growing season...but still not bad.



I took the wire off too early because I wasn't paying as much attention to my trees as I should over the summer and I really didn't want to deal with wire marks if I forgot too long. As a result, the branches did spring back upright more than I want them. I'll try again...

The roots have progressed nicely.



I probably should have done something about the crossing roots before now. They're starting to fuse. They don't bother me though so they're probably permanent now.

Here's another angle:



It needs some wire to put some weep back into the branches to give it a better age/size vibe. I'll probably wait until early spring though. We'll see how much foliage it decides to drop this winter. So far it hasn't lost as much as I thought it would being in a drier environment than it has been wintering in.

 

[LittleDingus]

This is the other half of the same geode. This one is finally starting to come into its own.



Some roots still need to fill in on the side I did not post a picture of. It could also use some attention all around. Mostly I've just been letting this one grow because I had the tree and the rock. It turns out this @ForestInnPottery pot is just about the perfect shape to match the geode contours. I bought it for another tree...but turns out I like this one in it quite a bit.

Maybe next season I'll spend a little more time on this tree

 

[LittleDingus]

Nearly 2 months later and plant #2 has lost all it's foliage and is already beginning to grow it back!



It's starting to bud out again so I took a little time to give it a checkup and cleaning.

I unpacked the moss from the roots I'm still trying to grow to see what's up. This isn't so bad:



Some trimming and repositioning and another season of growth and we might be ok there.

This is terrible



Long, straight and nowhere near the rock! Oh well, that's what I get for shortcuts...

I was able to pack a different root tighter to the rock contour that hopefully can replace this root in the future...if it takes better, this one will get chopped off.

Here it is with roots repositioned and moss packed back on.



I also did some gross wiring and pruning of the top...mostly to help broaden the canopy for now.



I like that first picture for the front...but the pot is irregular shaped so the front can be almost anywhere. Longer term, I like the angle of the geode in the last picture better.

It turns out I'm really liking this pot for this tree! It's a @ForestInnPottery pot that almost looks custom made to fit the contours of this specific geode It wasn't...I had bought it for a different tree but this pairing has grown on me...

I ended up with two cutting large enough to toss into soil. I don't have high hopes for them rooting...it might still be a tad too cool in my basement for that. But, hey, they were free And, just to keep it ridiculous...and because I hate empty pots, I grabbed a couple of empty tiny pots to put the cuttings in:



If they strike, I might see how far I can develop them in these pots...

 

[August]

Super super cool Dingus. Going through this thread made me think: how have I not seen more "crystals" implemented in bonsai? I suppose the answer is that the "meta" for bonsai these days is naturalistic and rugged ala Ryan Neal. As for my taste? I love cool trees. These, my friend are very cool trees

 

[LittleDingus]

Super super cool Dingus. Going through this thread made me think: how have I not seen more "crystals" implemented in bonsai? I suppose the answer is that the "meta" for bonsai these days is naturalistic and rugged ala Ryan Neal. As for my taste? I love cool trees. These, my friend are very cool trees

Thanks! Glad you like them

To be fair, I'm cheating the whole "crystal" thing a bit. I searched long and hard for exactly this type of "cathedral" geode that was both large enough to be the scale I imaged as well as cheap enough I could afford it! My original plan was to use amethyst because they are relatively easy to find in these larger sizes...but the price These two are two halves of the same geode that I got of Etsy for $80 for the pair.

The reason for a cathedral geode is they more naturally look like caves. The cave interior contains all the hard geometric surfaces but at a scale that it glistens and catches the light rather than look sterile with sharp edges. Geodes in general have an exterior matrix that is porous and the roots can easily grasp. Crystal faces are glass-like and roots won't adhere.

The tl;dr: I picked a "crystal" that looks more natural than what most people think of as a crystal

 

[LittleDingus]

Planting #1

Since I worked on it's sibling, I thought I'd dig this one off the shelf as well.



The two have spent most their lives not 5 feet from one another. This past growing season in particular, they were on the same self outdoors and in so got virtually identical care.

And yet, this one barely lost any foliage when I brought them in while its sibling lost everything. The big difference in care is that this one spent a good portion of the early spring sitting loose in a drip tray! It had some root work done to get it into its first pot. And, the mor I work with these guys, the more I'm thinking that's key to whether they will drop leaves for me when I bring them in or not.

For the past 2 years now, with an admittedly tiny sample size!, only the salicaria that I did heavy root work on dropped all their foliage when brought in. Those that I did little or no root work on dropped a few leaves here-n-there but mostly held onto them. I'll be keeping that in mind as I work on these guys in the future.

NOTE: other's results may differ! But that's been my experience with a half dozen or so different trees of different sizes thus far.

Anyway, no root work planned on this one this season! I did do some weeding...woodland sorel...the bane of my existence The canopy on this one might be filling in enough that I might try adding moss in the spring. That'll help with the weeds...

Other than weeding, I put wire back on for the season. No pruning...just some wire to add some age droop to the branches and to spread the canopy out some more.



I love this pot! Though it was more bucks that I'd like to admit...it was well worth it for this tree, in my opinion.

The front is obviously the first picture with the geode face. But the reverse is shaping up nicely too for those out there not digging the crystal

The bends in the branches are exaggerated as salicaria is rather springy and tends to relax a little when the wire is removed. Probably because I remove it too early because I'd rather have straight branches than wire marks