Jimbo's Ficus

[Jimbosmith]

Hello all,

Thought id show of my ficus. Im a big fan of Ficus as bonsai and love the look of Ficus in their natural habitat with all the aerial roots. Im always on the look out for more, but good ficus material thats (cheap) is very hard to find.

First up we have probably one of the first trees i have in my bonsai journey, I bought this probably around 10 years ago. I didn't really know what i was doing back then and was new to bonsai so it didn't really do much for ages. It was around 4/5 years ago that i really started taking bonsai more seriously, my outdoor collection grew but so did my Topicals. Being From the United Kingdom the Ficus all over winter inside and spend the warmer months outdoors in direct sun or in a humid greenhouse again in direct sun. I over winter on a windowsill with no additional lighting or particular care.

This photo is from 2021 and the second photo is from earlier this year. Ideally id like to form some aerials but so far its not playing ball



My Next project has been through some phases, again roughly from 2021. Its funny looking back at trees. I remember when i bought this i was super happy with how it looked. But when i look back i see some very obvious flaws and probably wouldnt have picked it now. I think it was fairly cheap though. With all my Ficus i repot them as soon as i get them as i find the nursery soil they are often sold in here is far too wet and i see signs of root rot. I was kinda lost with this tree. I let it grow out and styled it a few times and it put out lots of growth and loved spending time in the greenhouse over summer. As time went on though i couldnt look past the very straight section of trunk after the initial bends. So during a Defoliation in june i did a complete restyle/restart of the tree. I feel we have more taper and movement in the trunk and im letting the tree grow freely to see what new branches i get to work with.




Root over Rock (Fake it until you make it)
Im not sure i have a photo of this when i bought it it was 2022, but like i mentioned before i report all my ficus as soon as i buy them(from garden centers) when i repotted this one i found a split trunk/big roots buried below the soil. The only idea i had was to make it a root over rock to fill the void. So i headed to the closest fish store and picked out a rock they had and set about carving the rock with a grinder to fit the trunk. Tree was placed on and styled and its been left to grow since, im going to report next summer and see how well its gripping the rock. Plan for next year is to let a shoot in the apex grow to try and get some more taper into the trunk at the top, im hoping as the roots thicken the dramatic Sbend is hidden more.






Willow Leaf Ficus
Quite a hard species to get hold of in the United Kingdom, i was luckly enough to find this on Ebay from a seller interested in trees/plants the grow bulbus roots, wasnt interested in bonsai at all. Unsure where he got it from. This is largest i have, and shows the progress over the past 2years with the final image showing its new pot and regrowing after a defoliation. I had to correct a number of faults with this tree with very spindly growth and just areas where lots of branches came from the same location . I find that here the progress atleast for me is slower than Microcarpa and they struggle more in winter but im getting the hang of growing them now. I have probably 8, one that will be shown later and a number in development/cuttings. With this tree, im not happy with the roots, one side has lots of visible roots and the other side has nothing at all. I will be growing out some cuttings in the hopes of grafting some roots in place.



Final tree in this initial post is another Willow Leaf Ficus
New to me this year, i arrived from Spain i believe, currently the trees not doing too great and it had a heavy infestation of scale. So im hoping it makes it through the winter. I havent repotted yet. First image is how it arrived and the second image is an initial styling. i cant really say much about this tree as its still new to me. It has a fairly gnarly scar half way up the trunk, im undecided on what part this will play if any. But next season i will study the tree some more.

 

[Shibui]

Ideally id like to form some aerials but so far its not playing ball

Aerial roots emerge when there is high humidity. Regular misting of the branches or enclosing in a plastic tent have been used to promote aerial root growth.

Final tree in this initial post is another Willow Leaf Ficus
New to me this year, i arrived from Spain i believe, currently the trees not doing too great and it had a heavy infestation of scale. So im hoping it makes it through the winter.

You may already know that willow leaf ficus can be deciduous if they get cold or sometimes just from a change of environment so if it drops leaves don't panic. They nearly always come back as the weather warms up.

Good work on these ficus. The before and after images show great improvement.

 

[Jimbosmith]

Aerial roots emerge when there is high humidity. Regular misting of the branches or enclosing in a plastic tent have been used to promote aerial root growth.


You may already know that willow leaf ficus can be deciduous if they get cold or sometimes just from a change of environment so if it drops leaves don't panic. They nearly always come back as the weather warms up.

Good work on these ficus. The before and after images show great improvement.

Hello, thank you.

I have been able to grow aerial roots but not in the numbers I see people in Florida and the likes.

I have tried plastic tents, currently got 2 of the trees in tents. The greenhouse I use in summer is also very humid and mist daily. So far I can only get 1 or 2 at a time so it’s a slow process haha. I keep experimenting though and trying new techniques

 

[Shibui]

So far I can only get 1 or 2 at a time so it’s a slow process haha. I keep experimenting though and trying new techniques

I suspect that's the price we pay for growing trees way outside their normal climate zones but that doesn't seem to stop us trying.

 

[Joe_B]

Lovely work

 

[Jimbosmith]

So over the past couple months i have procured a couple new trees. These are very large ficus, in need of structural work in the future. Plans for this year is to repot both into a better mix that i can control a bit easier, with a potential defoliation and cutback on the twin trunk and the banyan style depending on how healthy its growing in the summer. Both these trees are very heavy and i can only just safely solo carry, First job was to build a trolley for the biggest pot. I am tempted to move into plastic training pots to shed some weight while i rebuild.

So tree Number 1 is a twin trunk, i have already began clearing up obvious faults, applying a bit of wire, top dressing and clearing all the moss from the trunk. This tree is in a 43cm pot and over 1m wide at the canopy. This trees substrate is holding a lot of water and i have only watered 2times in the past month or 2, so im really tempted to repot soon, just holding for warmer weather. Its starting to put out new growth now though.




The second tree, is another large one currently in a massive 60x40cm pot this ones put on a load of new growth and i have cut back some obvious faults however it needs more work. I was trying to get some health back into the tree as its a fresh import into the country and had been defoliated in transit, i cut off quite a large strange upwards growing branch and have grafted a few of the aerial roots into new locations, fingers crossed these start to take. The actual trunk line of this tree is quite crazy with it coming up and turning back on itself, leaving a hole in the middle as its begun to fuse to the biggest branch on the side. 1st photo is from February you can see the large branch on the right growing upwards that i cut off.





These photos are some trees that have inspired me, unsure of artists.

 

[Jimbosmith]

So a small update, its now June and all my ficus are outdoors. I have repotted the 2 larger trees, bare rooting best i could and dealing with any extra large roots and getting into a better soil mix. I opted for Plastic Training pots for now to shed some weight as the trees were very heavy to move and the larger one was a 2 person lift. Now im able to lift alone easily which will make winter a lot easier. Im debating if i want to defoliate the twin trunk tree and give it a hard cutback this year or let it pack on growth and do it next year.