A cute little tree. I wish I had the patience and vision to do bonsai.
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I bought a ficus elongata from the nursery where I usually buy my tomato starts in the spring of '13. It was already made into a bonsai. But was rather bushy and not the shape I wanted. So I did the bonsai repot thing the day after I brought it home. Removed it from its plastic pot. Removed all the growing medium from the roots and untangled the roots as best I could without damaging them.
Then I trimmed both the branches and the roots. I wired the tree up so I can train it to the shape I want And repotted it in one of my idle ceramic bonsai pots. You can see the wire wrapped around the trunk
My mistakes were:
1) Being a ficus, I should have let it adjust to the new environment before repotting.
2) Over trimmed the roots as opposed to what I trimmed off the top.
So while it has not died or even lost a branch, it has struggled. It sends out new tiny leaves and then they dry out, fall off and repeat. So I am certain it is just working on the root system before it pops full of leaves. I am not going to lose it!
And is a cute little tree.
See the new little leaves in the photo? I think I am close to the leafing out I want. But I do want the leaves to be small. Not those big ones.
And BTW- Notice our new 4" of snow in the background. Also note the water spot on the closest leaf.
Last edited by 78Terp; December 4th, 2013 at 07:31 PM. Reason: added image
A cute little tree. I wish I had the patience and vision to do bonsai.
Bah! Patience? Doesn't the time pass and you still don't have a bonsai! Just start and enjoy messing with it and see what happens. Time just passes faster and faster anyway. Pretty soon you'll find that years have passed and you have this enjoyable little plant!
best of luck with it!
Here is the bonsai 8 days later with more leaves. This is the most leaves this plant has had since I trimmed the roots when I repotted it.
There will be further leafing out beyond this.
Looking good!
Cheers,
BD
Looking better.
Here it is about 5 months after the first post and pics.
I'll need to trim it soon.
Very cute! Now I have to remember that its getting hard to find time to keep my orchids watered and some of my regular house plants are suffering because I am busy. Not time to start a new project! Repotting my huge old snake plant into a larger pot and then moving another plant into its pot and so on will keep my busy for a week or more! I'll need my husband to help me with the bigger plants, the snake plant is a good 5-6' tall and 2-3' across. It's very untidy, I'm a good year or two behind on getting it potted up again and where it is, when the cat falls off the top shelf of my industrial shelves (where I have my lights for my plants), the cat lands on the snake plant and smashes it over a bit.
I'm just glad I have 10' ceilings in my living room! lol
How long will the wire be left on? I know Ficus tend to be faster growers than some trees.
Will you put it outside for the summer?
Do you plan on defoliating it to reduce leaf size?
I have a F. benjamina that I put on my balcony for the summer. Have never bother mechanically defoliating to get a smaller leaf size. Instead, I do it the lazy way with cruel brutality -- I let the sun do it. Around late May/early June I put it outside on my balcony without hardening it off. My SE facing balcony gets full sun from 8am - 2pm at the height of summer. The sudden drastic increase in light intensity causes most of the leaves to drop. Plant looks naked for about a week before new leaves emerge ... smaller than the normal leaf size.