When I conceived my plan to fuse three different colour varieties of Ficus Benjamina about a decade ago I had no idea what complications this gimmicky project had in store for me.
While the trunks have fused well enough to confuse some people, differences in the growth habits of the three varieties have resulted in some branches growing more vigorously than others.
Working around that has been a constant battle, further complicated by the fact that I got carried away with what was meant to be minor pruning in late 2015. After that I made the mistake of letting the tree grow largely unchecked for over a year.
February 2017 - before styling
Had the dark-leaved branches (the most vigorous) been near the bottom of the tree, that might have worked out alright. Unfortunately all those branches were high up and as a result they had become disproportionately thick and had also created some nasty reverse taper and a massive bulge high up on the trunk.
Although it's another setback in the tree's progress I decided those branches had to go.
The old leader was contributing to the problem too so, with a better option having presented itself, I removed that as well. I also decided that the lowest branch didn't fit in with my future plans for the design of the tree.
Here it is after another major pruning and some wiring.
February 2017 - after styling
Right now the new leader needs to fatten up a bit, but hopefully I'll pay enough attention to keep the vigorous top growth under control this time.
And hopefully today's work will stimulate some back-budding because the tree really needs a couple of extra branches on the right side to get things properly balanced.
When I first became interested in growing bonsai in around the year 2000 I knew almost nothing about plants. I'd never been interested in gardening and had even found it difficult to keep a house plant alive. Yet I was drawn to the idea of owning a bonsai tree and set about trying to find something suited to life indoors. Not too many candidates presented themselves, but in due course I bought my first Ficus Benjamina.
I remember that one as being a pretty little tree with variegated leaves, but with the benefit of experience it probably wasn't anywhere near as good as I thought it was. I don't have any photos of it so I couldn't say for sure. But with 15 years of proper care it may well have become a decent bonsai. Sadly I'll never know.
I confess that within months I had murdered that tree by excessive defoliation. I was devastated when I was forced to accept that it was dead and immediate started looking for a similar tree to replace it. Unfortunately my attempts at finding another tree like it were fruitless and the best I could do was buy a few group plantings with different coloured foliage. Not realising they could be separated I kept them as house plants and began my first attempts at propagating ficus cuttings to turn into bonsai.
Only one of my early cuttings was successful and for years I battled to turn that tree into the informal upright that it refused to be. So far I've been unable to find the bonsai in that tree, but sentiment prevents me from giving it away.
Somewhere along the lines I got it into my head to try fusing my group of three dark-leaved ficuses into one tree. Without the benefit of repotting. pulling them together wasn't the easiest process. Though they eventually fused, branches were coming off at terrible angles necessitating excessive pruning. I'm still battling to get that tree into a decent shape too.
Other efforts I've made over the years include my plaited tree with three different types of leaves as well as the group planting I'm still trying to bring down to the height I'd like it to be. And then there's my misguided attempt to create a Ficus Benjamina mame. Using the clip and grow method I've created quite a nice trunk but I can't seem to get the branches I want.
But last week I found one Ficus Benjamina in my greenhouse which is showing more potential than the rest of them.
Ficus Benjamina - November 2016, before pruning and wiring
There was a time when I'd planned to keep this one tiny too, but when my styling attempts weren't working out, I left it to grow unchecked and had all but given up on it. Then last week I decided to see if I could do anything with it. On close inspection I felt the branch structure wasn't too bad, though all the branches were clumped together growing straight up.
I've tried wiring Ficus Benjamina in the past with little success. My attempted informal upright was looking great while the wire was on but when I removed it all the branches reverted to their old position, leaving only deep scars to show that the wires had ever been there. Under the circumstances I decided that using guy wires this time was a better option as I'll be able to leave those on the tree for a lot longer.
My initial plan was to do no pruning but I noticed that I had two leaders so I removed the one that was growing to the back. I also cut back some of the heavier branches in the hope of getting the tree to put more energy into the areas that need fattening, especially the first branch which really needs to be the thickest but is by far the thinnest right now.
Ficus Benjamina - November 2016, pruned and wired
Excuse the sloppy wiring, we had a power failure just after I started wiring this tree, forcing me to work by lantern light.
Here's a 360° view:
My plan for the immediate future is to let it grow with only the occasional trim to the thicker branches. I'd really like it to fatten up a bit more, but my main focus is getting the branches to develop the right proportions. And of course to get them to set in their new positions.
I've already written about my first failed efforts at growing bonsai in around the year 2000. One of my first trees was a beautiful variegated Ficus Benjamina which I killed due to excessive defoliation because, to be honest, I didn't have a clue what I was doing.
I was really sad to lose that tree and immediately started searching for one like it without success. For some reason those trees seemed to be in short supply at the time, and after a long search the closest I could find was a group of thin trees growing in one pot.
I didn't have the courage to separate them and had no idea back then that a bonsai planting could consist of more than one tree, so I kept them in my lounge as a house plant and set about growing my own bonsai from a cutting.
Over time the thicker trunks grew long and straggly with a fair amount of delicate foliage while the thinner trunks were so weak that they needed support to keep them upright.
Shortly after I joined my bonsai club I realised that they'd be better off outside. I wasn't too happy when all the sickly foliage got burnt by their first exposure to strong sunlight, but happily they soon put out stronger new leaves and have been growing vigorously ever since.
Eventually they grew so tall that the wind kept blowing them over, so I moved them into my little greenhouse, where they still reside.
As they grew the larger trunks thickened a lot but the lower branches started dying off and by the time I realised that I could turn them into a bonsai group planting, reducing the height left them looking pretty bare.
It's been a while now since their first chop and they've started back-budding in a few places, but they were getting pretty top heavy again, so last week I decided to reduce the top growth. Apologies for the missing photo showing them before pruning, but for some reason I forgot to take one. This is how they look right now.
A Ficus Benjamina group in early stages of training
It's been suggested that I keep them tall, but I'm undecided about their future height. Generally speaking I prefer shorter trees, so I'm hoping that they'll eventually give me some decent leaders lower down. Besides the current leader on the tallest tree looks horrible. Unfortunately it's all I have to work with right now.
My only plan for the immediate future is to get them into a bigger pot, and then all I can do is wait and see what new options they offer me when they start growing again.
Some of the experts at Reddit's bonsai group have accused me of doing too much too soon and I have to admit that I'm often guilty of that. While some of my trees can sit in my bonsai area for months or even years without my doing much work on them, some get more than their fair share of attention.
I'm trying to improve my bonsai skills though so, since becoming aware of the problem, I've been trying to restrain myself where possible. Despite that I sometimes find myself getting carried away once I have a branch cutter in my hands.
In a recent post I wrote about an odd little Ficus Benjamina I've been working on. Although it's not traditional bonsai, I had fun creating it. After its last haircut it was looking quite good, even if a couple of branches didn't feel quite right to me, and I even had thoughts of finding a bonsai pot for it.
That was over two months ago though, and it was starting to look rather overgrown again, so a couple of days ago I decided to bring it inside for a little trim while I watched the South African cricket team in action. I didn't plan anything drastic, just to tidy the top up a bit.
Before pruning
Perhaps part of the blame could go to my team's poor performance, or maybe that's just a lame excuse, but I suddenly decided that those branches had to go. Somewhere along the lines I also concluded that the tree was too tall, so I reduced the height as well. By the time I was done, my poor little tree was reduced to a mere skeleton with a few leaves on each branch.
What's left after excessive pruning
I'm not sure whether to be embarrassed by what I've done. Part of me feels like I've done something awful, but I'm also curious to see what new growth the little guy puts out during the rest of the Southern hemisphere summer. Who knows, in time it may still become a better tree.
One thing is certain though - that bonsai pot will have to wait!
I've been hanging around Reddit's bonsai group for a while now and, despite my early reservations after receiving some pretty harsh criticism, I'm finding it a really good place to learn.
A topic that comes up for a lot of debate there is whether it's possible to grow bonsai indoors. Some people insist that it can't be done, while others are more open-minded about the idea. What is certain is that some species cannot survive for long indoors and many newbies are in for a shock when they discover that their recently-acquired Juniper bonsai is dead or dying because they were misled into thinking that it could be kept on their desk.
I confess that when I first became interested in bonsai in around the year 2000, I too wanted to grow my little trees indoors. I knew very little about plants in general back then, but I'd already come across a book about indoor bonsai, so I had no reason to doubt that it could be done. One of my problems was that there weren't too many sunny spots inside my house and I hadn't heard of grow-lamps back then. My early attempts were consigned to the sunniest spot I could find - in the kitchen.
My first two trees were an Azalea and a Ficus, and with the ignorance of a beginner, the first thing I did was plant them in bonsai pots. Neither survived very long. I can't say for sure that it was being indoors that killed the Azalea as I'm sure I must have made other mistakes too. The Ficus, however, certainly could have survived inside if I'd cared for it properly, and I know that its death was entirely due to stupidity on my part.
I was not deterred, but refrained from putting my next batch of trees into bonsai pots and didn't even put much effort into styling them. In fact they spent their early years living with me as house plants. I still have two Ficuses I bought during that period. They now live outside and are slowly being trained into bonsai.
Another early acquisition which survived my early abuse was an Acacia Burkei, a tree which it has always been claimed needs to be outdoors. I've proved that they can survive on a sunny windowsill, but keeping mine there had disastrous consequences, if only because I gave it minimal care. Actually that tree did a lot more than survive, it thrived there... but in so doing the branches grew through the burglar bars covering the windows and when I finally wanted to move the tree, I was forced to cut off all the branches and start over. Had the tree been a Juniper, that would have been a death sentence. My Acacia now lives outdoors too and has developed some decent new branching.
Everything changed when I joined my club in late 2007. That was when I started to realise that even trees which can survive indoors are better off being outside when the weather allows.
Shortly after joining the club I started an experiment to see how keeping a tree indoors affected its growth. I started with these two young Ficus Benjamina cuttings:
Two cuttings at start of experiment
The cutting in the green pot was kept outdoors, while the one in the red pot was kept in my kitchen in rather poor light. After six months the difference is very visible in terms of both size and leaf quality. The leaves look so different that they don't even look like the same species.
Two cuttings at end of experiment - five months later
When the experiment ended I attempted to put some shape into the indoor tree, but in its weakened state the shock of wiring was too much for it and it died. The outdoor tree was with me for several years before I sold it at our club show. To the best of my knowledge it is still alive.
At a recent meeting of my bonsai club one of our senior members spoke about grafting, discussing a variety of different ways in which it could be used to improve our trees.
Although I've seen several of these methods used at workshops in the past, traditional grafting isn't something I've tried doing myself and to be honest I'd probably need a man's help if I chose to try some of the things he demonstrated.
Among the methods he showed us was how fusing several trees together can help to create fat trunks quickly. I used that method to create the tree being discussed here, although my reason for doing so was slightly different.
Tree created by fusing three different varieties of Ficus Benjamina
Many years ago, before I ever joined the club, I dreamed about creating a ficus bonsai with three different colours of foliage - different colour leaves on different branches. I'd seen braided ficus trees for sale on many occasions so that seemed like the obvious way to go. I didn't realise at the time that braiding is not the recommended method of fusing trunks as it can give a rather knobbly effect which never really goes away. You can see that effect in this photo of a tree which was already braided when I bought it.
Knobbly effect of plaited trunks on a nursery bought tree
Fortunately I started my tree with very young material though, so the effect of the braiding is not so obvious. I used three very thin cuttings from different varieties of Ficus Benjamina and braided the cuttings tightly as soon as they had formed adequate roots to support them.
As Ficus Benjamina is a fast growing species, my tree quickly reached what I regarded as a decent height so that I no longer had to worry about braiding but could focus my attention on branch development. I was spoilt for options and had to remove a few branches to prevent the tree from looking too bushy. There are still visible scars where the branches were cut off, but in time they will become less obvious.
With hindsight I made a couple of mistakes. The first was in my choice of material for the palest leaves. I had two different varieties to choose from and sadly I chose the less vigorous one. The result is that those branches will never be as vigorous as the branches with darker leaves. I'm trying to fatten them up, but I'm not sure I'll ever succeed in getting the balance right.
My second mistake is more a change of artistic vision. I don't find the middle (yellowish) leaf shade so appealing and wish I'd restricted myself to using only the other two colours. I've often contemplated starting a new tree using just those two and hope to do so this summer.
