ELI’S FICUS

A LITTLE HISTORY ON THIS TREE…

Last year, one month before my son was born, I went to the Midwest Bonsai Society Show at the Chicago Botanical Gardens.  My initial plan was to get a tree for my son to be, and develop it over the years so that when he got old enough, he would have a tree of his own.  I purchased this fused trunk ficus from Mark Fields.  It was developed by wrapping several young whips together around a pole.  So I bought the tree and went on my way.  I am a fan of ficus, as they are very quick to develop and very forgiving to bonsai techniques

 

August 2014

August 2015

Eli and his tree, after styling – September 2015

INITIAL WORK

First order of business was to reduce the shoots considerably, as they had grown quite long and leggy.  The growth was cut down to two leaves, and in some cases a single leaf to promote back-budding.  I have found that ficus do not like to be completely defoliated.  If you leave some green on the ends, they will respond with new buds and leaves on the interior.

Long shoot before reduction

Shoot cut back to two leaves

Once you prune back to two leaves, buds at the base of the leaf petiole will send out new shoots.  This is how you ramify the branch pattern.  Once the shoot as sent from that leaf, you will want to remove it so that more light can reach the interior of the tree.

Index finger indicating leaf at base to be removed

After leaf removal

Amount of leaves removed from tree

 WIRING AND STLYING

I went back and forth on how I wanted to style this tree.  Initially I decided to lean towards more of a Taiwanese/Vietnamese style where the branches come off the trunk and lift, more like an informal broom.  After completing styling, I showed Mark Fiends.  He recommended more of a Japanese approach where the branch will have an upward lift followed by a drop until the branch tips.  Each branch is wired out to make a fan shape.  From the top, the branch looks quite bare.  From the side, the fan shape branch will form a pad that looks quite full.

 I needed to create an anchor point to pull the branch down.  Guy wires are much more effective at holding a branch down than large wire on the entire branch in my opinion.  Plus it looks much cleaner to have a single guy wire instead of those bulky wires.  Anyhow, this is how I created an anchor to the pot.  I folded a piece of wire into a fish shape that would go directly under the drainage hole.  I then wrapped a small piece of copper wire around that anchor.  This would go up through the hole and up to the soil surface, where I would twist the wire into an eye hook.

Anchor with copper wire attached

Anchor secured to base of drainage hole

 

Copper wire

Eye hook

Small gauge copper wire is used to attach the branch to the eye hook.  I did place clear tubing around the branch so the wire would not cut into the branch.  I ended up lowering the branch much more at the end.  I wanted to create negative space and a defined branch pad.  I did this by lowering the front branch more than the second branch.  Had I not done this, the tree would appear more two dimensional, which we do not want.

Approach graft has almost taken from last year

Apex approach graft is taking much longer to take hold

 FINAL RESULTS – MINUS THE SMALL ADJUSTMENTS LATER

Front

Back

Left

Right

Final results from the day.  5 hours of work to prune, wire, and style this ficus.  Mark Fields suggested I pull the branches down more to create a larger profile and more negative space.  Definitely made a difference.  I am very happy with the way this tree has taken shape over the past year.

The tree will start to bite into this wire in two to three months.  I let the wire cut into ficus so that the branch will have a better chance of holding after removing the wire.  Ficus heal branch scars very quickly.