Positive Results from a Trunk Chop

When I did my most recent air layer on a member of my Ficus Ingens family, I was hoping it would stimulate new growth lower down the trunk. As long as the air layer was attached to the parent tree, however, that never happened.

That's why, despite knowing that Ficus Ingens are tough trees, when I separated them in February I was a bit concerned about the survival of the parent tree which had been reduced to a bare stump. I ended my previous post posing the question :

"After it's stubborn refusal to produce any low branches, will this finally shock it into cooperating, or will it kill the tree?"

 Happily it did the former. The stump is alive and well, with lots of new branches all along the trunk:

In fact in several places the growth pattern of this species led to multiple branches sprouting from one spot.

I had to thin those out or they would have caused ugly bulges on the trunk as they thickened.

After a quick tidy up, the tree looks like this:

There are new buds sprouting near the top of the tree, so I should be able to keep it to its current height - if I choose to do so.

The lowest branch is still there. As the second photo was taken from the opposite side, it's hiding behind the trunk. I'm not making any styling decisions now, but once I see how the tree develops I may remove that branch.

A full progression as well as future updates for this tree can be found here.

The new tree I propagated from the top is doing well too.

It has a couple of new branches along the straight part of the trunk and there are already a few roots growing out of holes in the pond basket.

Pretty good for six weeks' growth!

Tall and Straight with No Low Branches

The saga of my family of Ficus Ingens continues.

In 2012 I bought my first Ficus Ingens - very ordinary nursery stock, approximately 3 foot tall and straight as a pole. I've already discussed the first 2 successful air layers as well as the air layering blunder which, despite my doubts, had a happy ending. I sold that particular tree at my club's annual show, but still have the rest of the family.

The parent tree has made some progress, though I'm still not happy with the branch structure, so I've made a few changes recently. The smallest one is doing well too, though it has a bad case of wire bite after I tried to put some movement into the trunk and, as I so often do, left the wire on far too long.

Unfortunately the tallest tree refuses to cooperate. After the second air layer I was left with a long straight tree with a thin new leader.

January 2017

That was two years ago.

The top has grown vigorously since then, but the tree has stubbornly refused to produce even one low branch. It's bonsai potential that way is nil.

In November I decided that the only option was another air layer.

Air layer, February 2019, just before I removed it

This time I layered the tree just below the clump of branches growing really close together. This, I hoped, would finally stimulate some lower growth. That never happened.

The layer has rooted well though.

Root ball, just before I removed the layer

Last week I decided it was time to separate the top and bottom.

The new tree in it's own pot

As the new tree has so many low branches I decided to remove the long straight section before it gave me another problem tree.

February 2019 - after pruning

Now I'll let it grow for a while before deciding on my next step. There are way too many branches there to keep them all, unless I try to fuse some to the trunk later on. Possibly I'll grow a multi-trunk tree.

I'm pretty happy with my summer's work, but I'm a bit concerned for the future of the base:

Base - February 2019

After it's stubborn refusal to produce any low branches, will this finally shock it into cooperating, or will it kill the tree? I'd hate to lose it.

My Air Layering Blunder - a year later

It's been over a year since my blunder when removing the air layer from a member of my family of Ficus Ingens. A blunder which meant that, instead of having one new tree with lots of roots, I found myself with a tree with very few roots and a stub with lots of roots and nothing else. At the time I feared that neither would survive, but by the time I wrote my first update three months later, it was clear that the new tree was alive and well. Things weren't looking so promising for the stub with all the roots though. A bud had formed at soil level, but nothing ever developed there and I feared that the entire stub had died of root rot.

Winter came and went, and now the end of summer is approaching, and all the while they've been left to their own devices on the bottom shelf of one of the stands in my greenhouse, receiving water and the occasional feeding, but no other attention. Today I decided to check how the tree was developing, holding no real expectations of finding a second tree there. I was in for a surprise.

Nothing has ever developed on the upper part of the stub, but clearly the roots are still alive and have sent out a brand new trunk:

The second tree, just starting to grow - March 2018

It's going to be a long time before I can do anything with that one, but perhaps in a lighter position it will develop more quickly now that it's made a start. I don't think it would be wise to disturb it just yet, but hopefully by next summer it will be ready for me to move it to a pot of its own.

The tree it shares its home with hasn't grown substantially, though it's now covered in leaves.

The new tree - March 2018 - with the second tree just visible to its right

I guess it's put most of its energy into developing lots of roots, so I expect to see a lot more growth next summer. Again, a better position should help. As I said in a previous post, the shape is all wrong, so in time I'll have to do another air layer at the bend. I've already identified a suitable new leader, so when the time comes I'll be left with a tree with a little movement. For now the future air layer will help the main tree to fatten up.

As for the parent tree, I haven't done anything to it either but it's been outside getting the full benefit of the sun so it's grown tall and strong. There are lots of new branches near the area of the air layer but it stubbornly refuses to give me any lower down on the trunk.

Parent tree - March 2018

Looking at the structure I was tempted to think that the tree wants to be a literati, but the leaves are far too big to make that an option. One of these days I'll have to sit down and see what other options it has to offer. Perhaps a hard pruning will finally persuade it to produce those lower branches I want.

My Air Layering Blunder - 3 months later

In January I wrote about the bad mistake I made removing the air layer from a Ficus Ingens. I was quite concerned about the new tree's ability to survive after I accidentally removed most of the roots. Happily there was just enough root left to keep it alive and it's now full of foliage.

Ficus Ingens air layer - April 2017

It's never going to be a beauty with its two leaders, but in time I'll probably do another air layer to remove the leader growing to the right. Do I need another tree? No, but I can always sell off some of the excess when I decide which of my trees I like best.

The news isn't as good regarding the little stub which had most of the roots. It was looking promising in February, when I took this photo.

Stub with new bud - February 2017

Unfortunately that little bud at the base never developed into anything. Perhaps something else will still develop but I fear it may be suffering from root rot given the fact that I planted both in one pot and I've had to water according to the requirements of the tree which has foliage.

Of course the important part was always the parent tree. After removing the air layer all that was left was a thin leader with a few leaves.

Parent tree - January 2017

I'm reasonably happy with it's growth over the last three months.

Parent tree - April 2017

Sadly there are no signs of new branches lower down, but hopefully when I prune the tree it will stimulate new growth where I want it. With winter rapidly approaching, however, I have no plans to prune it any time soon.

An Air Layering Blunder

During my time growing bonsai I've propagated a number of trees by air layering unwanted sections off the ones I already own, and most of them have been done using the tourniquet method. It usually works very well, and the air layer I first mentioned in my post about my family of Ficus Ingens proved to be no exception. Well not until the time came to separate the top from the parent tree anyway.

Last week everything was looking good to go.

Air layer with a decent amount of roots

Once I'd made the first cut, severing the two halves of the tree, I noticed that the roots were coming from two points - one just above the tourniquet and the other quite a bit further down the trunk. Not ideal positioning if I wanted to create a decent root system in the future. So, assuming that most of the roots were coming from above the tourniquet, I made my next cut just below the wire. Bad mistake.

To my horror I found I now had a small tree with very little root growth and a stub of trunk with lots of roots.

I planted both in the wide, shallow pot I'd prepared, then realising how unsteady the little tree was, I made some holes in the side of the pot to tie it in place without disturbing the roots again.

Two sections in one pot. The arrow shows the stub which has most of the roots.

Here's the new tree, defoliated to reduce the stress on the tiny remaining root ball.

All I can do now is wait to see whether either section survives.

A week later the new tree is showing no signs of dying, so I'm hopeful that all is not lost. As for the stub, who knows? Some species of Ficus can be propagated from root cuttings. I'm just not sure whether Ficus Ingens is one of them.

Whatever happens my top priority for the immediate future is the parent tree.

All I had was one branch which I've wired upwards as a new leader. The trunk is rather long and straight so, depending on what develops, I may opt for a shorter tree later on.

I'm really impatient for it to produce some branches lower down so that I can start working out a plan for its future.

Ficus Ingens - creating a family of trees

April 2012 - as purchased

This is a tree I bought at a local nursery in April 2012. At the time it was about 3 foot tall and straight as a pole, but it had two things going for it - it had decent nebari (roots) and it was a variety of ficus which I didn't have in my collection. It was also really cheap.

It's a Ficus Ingens, the red-leaved fig. The foliage starts out red, but as it matures, it turns green. The leaves are quite large, but I believe that they reduce well so I'm hopeful that it will make a decent bonsai one day.

I love to propagate my own trees so my first step was to air layer the excess height, which in this case meant everything about the first couple of branches. I'm not sure when I started the air layer, but I'd guess that I waited until the South African spring, so that would have been late 2012.

Ficuses tend to air layer very easily and by February 2013 I was the proud owner of two trees - one long and straight, and this little one on which I could start work developing branches:

February 2013 - after removing air layer

Once the top had been removed the existing branches started to grow well and, despite one trim, by June 2014 it looked like this:

June 2014 - before pruning

At that time I took it to a workshop where I was persuaded to remove the lowest branch, something I now feel may have been a mistake. After some hard pruning, this is what was left:

June 2014 - after pruning

Since then I've pretty much left it to grow, and it currently looks like this:

Current appearance - March 2016

Now I'm starting to wonder what my next step should be. I considered reducing the height but I'm wondering whether I should develop it into a slightly taller tree than I originally planned. I don't want to rush the decision so for now I've done nothing.

Any suggestions would be welcome.

Here's a 360° view:

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While the original tree was growing branches, my new tree was fattening up quite nicely but all of its branches were high up, so last summer I air layered a small section off the top in the hope of encouraging more branching lower down. My collection now consists of these three:

The tree and its offspring - March 2016

Despite my efforts the tall one still has no low branches, so this week I decided it was time to start another air layer just above the lowest branch.

New air layer on the tall tree

Now I'm impatiently waiting for roots to develop.