Ficus benjamina yard material

[Townes Van Tortoise]

I recently found 2 huge ficus benjamina in a friends back yard. they are planted up against a house and i can tell they are a fusion of many small ones. Im mostly interested in one of them because it looks almost completely fused. The problem is there is an area above the usable trunk that is aomost bare before the foliage starts.

Has anyone had any experience collecting large yard ficus material, and will benjamina sprout new buds from this blank area i descrined? I went ahead and dug a trench, severed the long roots woth clean cuts and backfilled. I also trimmed the top back about 1/3 becasue it was about 6 feet tall. Sorry, i didnt get any pics of the whole tree from a distance. To me i feel like if this trunk could be usable, it would be great material.

Ive only been able to fund one photo of a bonsai of comparable thickness

 

[sorce]

If you are, where those grow in the ground, you WILL be able to grow a small cutting, into material better than that, in a shorter amount of time than it takes to fix whatever is going on there.

Or so it looks now.

Sorce

 

[Townes Van Tortoise]

So your going to be that guy who makes me do it now. I was looking for someone to second the notion that yeah, it would be badass but you have too much shit to do to be doing all that.

I think your suffering from a little lack of imagination. Here, those are rarely seen except for a weak little houseplant. The side pictured would be the back, where the view would be of a trunk bigger around thn you are that is hollowed out in the backside. Theres plenty of branches bearing foliage that right now all point up butthey could be fanned out with the effect of a big ass banyan tree. Ive effectily had aerial roots start spouting on those boring braided benjaminas from lowes by keeping a himidier from the 80s for when you get sick on it in my front window of my house. And i noticed my skin wasnt as dry either. So i think i will make the giant ancient indoor banyan tree and either look at it everyday, or sell it in about 8 or 10 years and buy a car. or i might dig them both up.

 

[Townes Van Tortoise]

But I hate buying material at nurserys or even worse box stores, where the ficus ive seen are not great and they run between 10 and 20 dollars for a 1 gallon container that has 4 or 5 little trunks in it. I know fusion can be done fairly quickly, but this tree was planted back when the house was built which is now over 20 years. the side that shows has been fiercely assaulted by an adopted underwalked pitt bull that is a good dog but runs on a nuclear reactor for energy. it has been eaten. The side on the back looks quite promising, and from other angles that front section that's dead kind of has a cool effect ive seen on the large banyan trees in photos. Where I live, people are obsessed with the notion of having the trees inside the house. I sell many ficus trees to people that are sometimes cheesy and the trunks are about as thick as my thumb. Now if this $20 tree survives being dug up it would look cool in a large flat shallow container inside of the house. Or certain "important" people will pay to have it kept in their office. Some of the best projects ive done came from free material that was going to be thrown away, or sometimes I motivate them with very small amounts of money or give them a small tree that I have. but I think a banyan tree that's about 2.5 to 3 feet tall and about 19-20 inches total trunk diameter, then a caopy radiating outward would be rad. Maybe im overly optimistic, but id rather be that then a dream crusher. The project would never come to fruition if it involved me obtaining the 100 seedlings needed to try to do a fusion half as fat as this one. The cost in trees alone would be in the 100's.

Estimate this tree could look pretty nice in 2 years. In 3 it would for sure impressive. You got to look at what it could be not what it is now. But hey some people just "do" and some people just give reasons why they "don't". Different strokes for different folks. But its always nice to hear people's opinions or ideas. Honestly. I appreciate any and all input. and its very possible that after digging it up it ends up in my green waste. Or maybe after an hour of digging I give up. But to me, this was far more interesting than most of the material I see during my constant scouting. I've dug things out of yards that were just as much work that I was way less excited about.

But what I was wondering is do adventitious buds ever form on these on parts of the trunk that are no longer growing foliage?

 

[sorce]

I think your suffering from a little lack of imagination.

im·ag·i·na·tion
/iˌmajəˈnāSH(ə)n/

noun

the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses.
_____

Sorce

 

[leatherback]

I have a serious lack of imagination. I cannot imagine what is going on in the mess of branches that you have there.

Backbudding will mainly take place on healthy specimens. I have a benjamina in a pot in my living room, grown from a 1$ cutting in the supermarket to a 5 inch trunk over some 10 years. They do backbud. But hesitatingly.

If your friend wants these gone, I would take very sharp pruners and prune the whole thing to the basic trunkline that you are after. Leave it in the ground. Wait for a few months to get a nice bushy shrub and then dig. IF you do not find a pleasing trunkline, you can still dig and toss.

 

[Townes Van Tortoise]

im·ag·i·na·tion
/iˌmajəˈnāSH(ə)n/

noun

the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses.
_____

Sorce

??? I am not sure why you took the time to define a word all are familiar with, but I assume you had one.

 

[Townes Van Tortoise]

I have a serious lack of imagination. I cannot imagine what is going on in the mess of branches that you have there.

Backbudding will mainly take place on healthy specimens. I have a benjamina in a pot in my living room, grown from a 1$ cutting in the supermarket to a 5 inch trunk over some 10 years. They do backbud. But hesitatingly.

If your friend wants these gone, I would take very sharp pruners and prune the whole thing to the basic trunkline that you are after. Leave it in the ground. Wait for a few months to get a nice bushy shrub and then dig. IF you do not find a pleasing trunkline, you can still dig and toss.

I'm not imagining a single trunk tree if thsts what you guys are thinking. I like the idea of not waiting 10 or 20 years to form a trunk this thick. Of course it's not perfect material but I think a banyan style tree would look very cool myself. When you see banyan trees, they usually have a "mess of branches"

 

[Townes Van Tortoise]

I have a serious lack of imagination. I cannot imagine what is going on in the mess of branches that you have there.

Backbudding will mainly take place on healthy specimens. I have a benjamina in a pot in my living room, grown from a 1$ cutting in the supermarket to a 5 inch trunk over some 10 years. They do backbud. But hesitatingly.

If your friend wants these gone, I would take very sharp pruners and prune the whole thing to the basic trunkline that you are after. Leave it in the ground. Wait for a few months to get a nice bushy shrub and then dig. IF you do not find a pleasing trunkline, you can still dig and toss.

I did trim it back and began to prepare the roots. But it's not so much a trunk "line" I am searching for. Imagine something like this

 

[Townes Van Tortoise]

I have a serious lack of imagination. I cannot imagine what is going on in the mess of branches that you have there.

Backbudding will mainly take place on healthy specimens. I have a benjamina in a pot in my living room, grown from a 1$ cutting in the supermarket to a 5 inch trunk over some 10 years. They do backbud. But hesitatingly.

If your friend wants these gone, I would take very sharp pruners and prune the whole thing to the basic trunkline that you are after. Leave it in the ground. Wait for a few months to get a nice bushy shrub and then dig. IF you do not find a pleasing trunkline, you can still dig and toss.

Upon reexamination there are very many short compact branches low on the tree to where I can just eliminate the leggy part seen from the side profile photo and use them, instead of worrying about back budding. I always hear people talk about in bonsai we grow trunks. This would be a basically free, instant 26 inch (circumference not diameter) trunk. It's over a foot diameter at one point.

 

[sorce]

??? I am not sure why you took the time to define a word all are familiar with, but I assume you had one.

I was talking about a whole different tree "not present to the senses" that you can grow better than what this is.

That also took imagining some of what this could be.

We may have a different opinion on this material, but I certainly do not lack imagination, by definition.

I still think you should grow the fully imagined one, alongside this one.

Sorce

 

[Townes Van Tortoise]

I was talking about a whole different tree "not present to the senses" that you can grow better than what this is.

That also took imagining some of what this could be.

We may have a different opinion on this material, but I certainly do not lack imagination, by definition.

I still think you should grow the fully imagined one, alongside this one.

Sorce

Ok, I get what you are saying. Since I know nothing about you I shouldn't have made a blanket statement about your attributed, or included the disclaimer at the end of the sentence, adding: "in this particular instance."

I am fiddling with some fusion techniques of ficus currently, but my interest in this tree was more due to my opportunistic nature. I have many long term projects started and hoping to start but we will see. As far as these growing in the ground, my friend lives pretty close but there is a difference of two usda zones somehow and my benjaminas had a rough go of it this winter, as mild as it was. I've never actually seen another ficus growing outside anywhere in the whole region, and I suspect partly due to the dryness of the region. So my first time seeing a ficus any bigger than a couple inches that was healthy took me by surprise; especially being that this friend had no idea what it was. I usually keep mine in the house and grow them with humidifiers to achieve the look of the banyans I've seen pictures of, and it would take me a lifetime to grow that thing.

Long story short, it was something I stumbled along and saw as a possibility for a cool statement tree. I did not think it was the greatest material man ever saw, but it does have girth and girth takes time. And you know, time we only have so much of. But my reason for posting was not to argue or name call or mischaracterize, o simply wanted to know others experience with transplanting these or anything relative.

So apologies of offended, not my intention. I was talking in context to discussion at hand . And I am just now figuring out that you have to be careful what photos you post on here; or some snob with a rock in his shoe the world over is going to throw mud and negativity at it . And I am not referring to you, since I see now that any criticism you had constructive. When I used to only cone across bonsainut thru google searches it spared me background noise that I am now seeing sometimes comes along with it. But that's just humans for you, and I guilty of being a human as well.

 

[sorce]

humans

I think I was already upset that that day at other humans! Of the less human variety! Lol!

Interesting to hear about the dry climate not producing many large fici...I still think you can grow the shit out of one!

Most importantly, I DO think that thing can become something interesting as well.

My mind is on my ficus woes, this guides my thoughts through winter down quite the narrow passage, which in this case is outdoor ground growth envy!

Cheers Brother!

Sorce

 

[Shima]

Imagine something like this

I don't need to imagine

 

[Colorado]

Dig it up!

 

[Townes Van Tortoise]

Interesting to hear about the dry climate not producing many large fici...I still think you can grow the shit out of one!

Don't quote me on that, in the proverbial sense, it's just an explanation that makes sense in my mind but I haven't the proof. I appreciate the vote of confidence and I think I will ad some ficus( or 'fici' if I may take the liberty) to my recently enthused ground growing program. I also just came up with an experiment last night to combine two clearance trees from lowes: 1) braided ficus bejamina and 2) pot of about 10 ficus seedlings that are connected at roots as commonly found. I'm sure someone has probably done this, but I've never seen it. I already wanted to air layer the braided one, so I'm going to put the small clump into the pot I air layer with and weave them through the opening in the braids. I'm not going to braid them so artificially, but instead try to make the existing braid look more natural and create width at the future base.

It might be the dumbest idea I've ever had, or it might become standard procedure in the future for everyone; but hopefully not a dull somewhere between. Anyway I'm trying to be more considerate of others time and attention spans with my word Counts. But cheers to you as well, buddy, I'm presently surprised to find not all the people I encounter online are miserable trinkets spreading gruff worldwide. Really, as you know, theres no reason for it.

But nothing surprises me these days, sadly, from california drivers purposely blocking you from being able to pass them to people panicking into stockpiling toilet paper because they saw on TV that some people they never met got mildly sick. Speaking of, refrain from shaking hands, not due to fear of a virus, but becasue they might not have been able to get any toilet paper. I thought it was funny.

Take it easy bud

 

[Townes Van Tortoise]

I don't need to imagine

That is awesome, my first experience with banyan trees was watching ' Dog the bounty hunter ' which , to the disbelief of everyone that knows me, is to this day my favorite show. Thinking back on it that might have been the moment I awakened from my 'tree blindness' some years ago. I'm not sure if other people are familiar with the concept, but I heard about it somewhere. Evidently thousands of years of natural selection favored early humans who could quickly focus on what's important and disregard what's less important to their immediate survival. And if you live amongst things like sabertooth tigers, it was beneficial to focus on shapes and colors like that rather than the trees and plants around you. So our brains are still somewhat programmed to quickly disregard the plants and trees around us, which is why camoflauge and gilly suits are effective. I know for sure, I used to be affected by this and to me there were exactly three kinds of trees: regular, pine, and palm. And it took me a while to make those distinctions even.

Anyway, I digress, haha, badly in this case. ....
Those banyan trees are badass and I intend to make it out to your paradise one day

 

[sorce]

toilet paper.

Haha! I noticed we had a "new" kind so I was like....WTF?
TP scare!

I started thinks ng about how none of these "bunker fuckers" thought about shitting!
All the water you need forever and no shitter!

Wonder if they built doors to the underground Earth, to fetch worms and shit.

They're gonna just be stuck down there....shitting on each other! Lolol!

Sorce

 

[Townes Van Tortoise]

I have a serious lack of imagination. I cannot imagine what is going on in the mess of branches that you have there.

Backbudding will mainly take place on healthy specimens. I have a benjamina in a pot in my living room, grown from a 1$ cutting in the supermarket to a 5 inch trunk over some 10 years. They do backbud. But hesitatingly.

If your friend wants these gone, I would take very sharp pruners and prune the whole thing to the basic trunkline that you are after. Leave it in the ground. Wait for a few months to get a nice bushy shrub and then dig. IF you do not find a pleasing trunkline, you can still dig and toss.

Have you any experience collecting or transplanting a large one from the ground? I am very familiar with how they grow in pots indoors from a small one purchased for cheap or otherwise. I opportunistically considered collecting it to avoid the 10 year wait you mentioned to get to 3 inches. This one measured at one orientation to be over 12 inches thick.

Thanks for your input and please let me know if you have collected or ____________ a large or mature one.

 

[Shima]

That is awesome, my first experience with banyan trees was watching ' Dog the bounty hunter ' which , to the disbelief of everyone that knows me, is to this day my favorite show. Thinking back on it that might have been the moment I awakened from my 'tree blindness' some years ago. I'm not sure if other people are familiar with the concept, but I heard about it somewhere. Evidently thousands of years of natural selection favored early humans who could quickly focus on what's important and disregard what's less important to their immediate survival. And if you live amongst things like sabertooth tigers, it was beneficial to focus on shapes and colors like that rather than the trees and plants around you. So our brains are still somewhat programmed to quickly disregard the plants and trees around us, which is why camoflauge and gilly suits are effective. I know for sure, I used to be affected by this and to me there were exactly three kinds of trees: regular, pine, and palm. And it took me a while to make those distinctions even.

Anyway, I digress, haha, badly in this case. ....
Those banyan trees are badass and I intend to make it out to your paradise one day

It's not a Banyon, it's a Ficus benjamina.