Two Weeks Without Drainage

I can't believe it's been four months since my last post.

Okay, I guess the fact that it's winter in South Africa counts as an excuse of sorts because I haven't been working on my trees that much. Not even the last couple of weeks when I should have been busy repotting them as spring is definitely in the air. Unfortunately I've repotted very few, partly due to the fact that procrastination is one of my big weaknesses, but technology problems have played a big part too. I was unwilling to get my hands dirty while waiting for tech assistance that never arrived!

Just about the only time I've worked on my trees lately has been at workshops.

One of the trees I felt had to be repotted urgently was the fig truncheon cutting which I struggled to keep alive through a heatwave last summer. Two weeks ago it was just starting to get its first leaves so I took it to a club meeting where I could get some help lifting it out of the two pots it was living in.

I bought a few pots from the club's shop and quickly repotted the tree into one of them before the meeting started.

It's been sitting in the shade since then, looking reasonably happy, and I was planning to move it back into the sun in the next few days.

August 2019 - showing early spring growth

And then I made a discovery which forced me to change my plans.

Among the items I was packing for today's workshop were training pots for repotting some of my other trees. I was horrified to find that one of the larger pots I'd bought two weeks ago had no drainage holes. That brought the horrible realisation that the pot I'd planted my fig tree in might not have any holes either.

My fears were soon confirmed. My poor tree has spent the last two weeks in soggy soil. What's more once I removed it from the pot, I discovered that the soil was really smelly.

I've now moved the tree into a better pot with clean soil, but I'm very worried about the possibility of root rot. This tree may still be fat and ugly (though not as bad as when I first wrote about it) but it's not a tree I want to lose.

It's back in the shade for now, and I've been advised to water it with a fungicide (which I still have to buy) and hopefully that will help it to pull through. For now, however, I've got a few nervous weeks ahead of me.

You can see a full progression of this tree (including future updates) here.

A Thirsty Fig Tree

My Ficus Carica truncheon cutting has been doing really well. Until today that is.

I got a real fright when I went out to water my trees this morning because it was wilting rather badly.

Ficus Carica before watering - October 2018

I've been trying my best to protect this tree from potential damage if we get hit by hail before the branches are well established, so I've had it up against a wall with a slight overhang from the roof of the house, allowing it to get sun, but hoping that the roof will protect it if necessary. I guess when I watered my trees the wall prevented water from getting around the back of the tree, causing the soil to dry out on that side.

As soon as I noticed the problem I brought the tree inside for a good watering out of the reach of the sun which was pretty strong given that today was the hottest day since this cutting was taken, reaching a maximum of 32°C. I delayed the watering only long enough to get a quick photo and set up the camera for a time lapse recording of the tree's recovery.

This is what happened over the next hour.



With the foliage looking a whole lot better, I decided to keep the tree indoors, out of harm's way, for the rest of the day.

Ficus Carica - one hour later

Tomorrow I'll need to find it a better spot, so that I don't make the same mistake again.

After watching the video however, I'm a bit nervous about putting it back in the hot sun because I can see slight signs of revival before the water even hit the soil. Could it be that the heat was the real cause of the problem? I guess I'll only know that once it's outside again.

Photo progression including future updates can be seen here.

It's fat and ugly, but it's alive

The Ficus Carica truncheon cuttings which I planted in April were by far my most ambitious propagation attempt to date. An attempt made more complicated by my decision to plant them without using rooting hormone which, I've heard, may be carcinogenic. Instead I soaked them in a kelp solution and hoped for the best.

As we were heading into winter at the time, I knew a lot of patience would be required. Ficus Carica is a deciduous tree so I told myself there wasn't much prospect of visible growth for several months.

Strangely one of the thickest cuttings showed signs of budding early on so, when the weather got cold I moved that one into my greenhouse. With limited space, however, I was forced to put the other five in a less sheltered area, on the lower shelf of a metal stand which I cover with frost cloth on nights when the temperature drops below 5°C.

By mid-August many of my trees, my established Ficus Caricas included, were already turning green, but there were no signs of life from my truncheon cuttings. Well not until mid-September, when I finally noticed a couple of buds on the thickest cutting in the less sheltered area.

A couple of weeks later the growth on that one is looking promising, so I'm hopeful that root growth is at least as good.

Late September 2018

So far none of the others are showing signs of life, not even the one that was in the greenhouse. I fear I may have harmed that one by pampering it, exposing it to excessive heat when the weather started warming up.

I'm not giving up on any of them just yet though. I made that mistake with my previous attempt three years ago only to discover that one of the cuttings I'd just dug up was starting to root. I tried putting it back in soil, but it never recovered. I really regret that because it was a far more interesting cutting than any I got this time.

I'm a bit frustrated that the cutting which has rooted is the ugliest of the bunch - no taper and it even has an ugly crack at the base. But I'm impressed that I was able to root a cutting approximately the thickness of a soda can without using rooting hormone.

I'm not convinced this tree will ever have bonsai potential but if not, hopefully in time it will give me figs to eat, something none of my other Ficus Carica trees have done so far.

Photo progression including future updates can be seen here.

Will a massive fig cutting root?

In the footnote to a post I wrote in January, I referred to my attempts to grow a fig tree from a thick cutting off a neighbour's full size tree, only to be thwarted by the need to save water during a period of drought.

Thankfully that drought is now a thing of the past so, when my neighbour pruned his fig tree yesterday, I couldn't resist the temptation to try again. Unfortunately by the time I found them, the branches had already been hacked to pieces, and most of them were pretty straight, with no side branches. Still, I felt I had to try.

I quickly grabbed three large branches of various thicknesses, all far too long for my requirements, so my first job was to cut each in half.

As I began to cut them up I was already starting to fear that I'd bitten off more than I could chew so I began with the thinnest one to see whether I had the strength to saw through them. That didn't take too long so I moved on to the next one, which didn't prove to be too much of a problem either.

Then it was time to tackle the monster, a branch quite a bit thicker than my wrist. Would I be able to pull if off?

There were moments when I contemplated quitting, but once I'd made a start I battled on, unwilling to see all my effort go to waste. Finally, after two hours of hard labour, I found myself with two big stumps and a total of six cuttings to pot.

I left them soaking overnight in a solution of kelp and water.

As space is a problem, today I potted them in the smallest pots that would hold them.

They're now in a sheltered spot in my bonsai area, protected from sun and excessive wind.

I know they don't look like much, just straight stumps with little or no taper, but the two biggest are pretty large - bigger than most of the trees I own. Hopefully in time something can be done to improve their appearance... if they root.

For scale here's a photo of the biggest and the smallest side by side. To give an idea of size, the smaller cutting is in a one litre yogurt tub.

As I look at the two thickest stumps now, I have to wonder how I'll cope with them if they grow. When I grabbed the biggest branch, what was I thinking?

Update:
Only one of the thickest cuttings rooted.

Photo progression including future updates can be seen here.

When Branches Crack

Among the trees growing in my bonsai area is a skinny fig tree which I started from a cutting off a neighbour's tree when he pruned it in mid-2015. Although it's not much thicker than a pencil, by December 2017 it was nearly two foot tall. Yet it had not produced a single branch. I did however see signs that it was setting buds for next summer's fruit. (*)

Then disaster struck, or so it seemed. The trunk was growing closer to horizontal than vertical, so I decided to wire it into a more upright position, but with a little added movement. The trouble is I wasn't as gentle as I should have been and, while bending it to the desired angle, I managed to crack the trunk. Not a small crack either, this one went more than half way through the trunk.

On another tree I'd probably have cut back to the site of the crack and worked with what was left, but in this case I wasn't happy to do that for a couple of reasons:

• the crack site was just below the first leaf, meaning I'd have been left with a bare stump
• as I already have a quirky fig tree I've been working on for some time, my main focus for this one has been on trying to grow fruit. If I'm right about the buds I've seen, cutting back would have delayed my chances of getting fruit.

Although I believed the top half of the tree had little hope of survival, I decided to see if it could be saved. I manipulated the wire to bring the two sides of the crack together, then sealed it with Kiyonal paste.

By the next day the leaf at the site of the crack was starting to dry up and a few days later it fell off but, remarkably, that was the only sign of distress the tree ever showed.

January 2018 - three weeks after the "accident"

Now, three weeks later, there is new growth at the apex, but more importantly it's starting to develop new branches both above and below the crack.

Crack site - new growth is visible at the bottom

It seems that damaging the trunk was actually a blessing in disguise.

(*) I'm certain that somebody will be wondering why I started with such a thin cutting, so let me explain.

The cutting my neighbour gave me was actually big and thick, with too many branches to fit into any pot I owned, so I cut it into several pieces in a variety of sizes, hoping that the thicker ones would root. In time they may have done if we hadn't been hit by what I believed was a severe drought, but was actually relatively minor compared to the drought that is still taking its toll on other parts of South Africa.

When water restrictions were imposed I decided it was time to dispose of whatever was not alive, so I pulled most of the cuttings out of their pots. Sadly one of the thickest ones was just starting to root, but my attempts to save it were unsuccessful. Only this one skinny one survived.

I still hope to get a better fig cutting one day but for now I'm hoping that this one will fatten up. Maybe those extra branches will help.

An Entire Growing Season Wasted

It's been a year now since I last mentioned my fig tree, so I thought it was time for a quick update. Sadly things haven't quite gone to plan.

It was doing really well in spring, but the leader was getting far too long.

October 2016 - before pruning

I decided to shorten it so that I could get some ramification.

October 2016 - after pruning

The tree responded well. Within weeks there were lots of new branches developing more or less where I wanted them.

New growth - November 2016

Then disaster struck. Four days after the photo above was taken we were hit my a massive hail storm and all that lovely new growth was ripped off, leaving this:

November 2016 - after the hail

It's now four months since that storm and sadly the tree hasn't replaced those branches. After some lesser hail late last year, it's looking worse than ever.

March 2017

With winter approaching it appears that the entire growing season has been wasted. I guess all I can do now is wait to see how it responds next spring.

Breaking all the Rules

I know I've written at length about my fig tree, but I thought one last update would be in order before the Southern hemisphere winter arrives. Already the days are getting shorter and there's a nip in the morning air, so this tree will soon drop all its leaves. I can't see anything changing between now and spring, so you won't have to read about it again until at least September.

This tree has changed a lot over the course of this summer, and most of what I've done has gone against advice I've been given both online and at my club, but that's okay. It's my tree and I'm the only one who has to like it.

December 2015 - before pruning

This is what it looked like in December, before I started work on it. A strange twisty trunk low down with a dead straight top section. My plan was always for a short tree though, and all that height was just to thicken up the apex.

When I took it to my club for a crit just after this photo was taken, I didn't expect any positive feedback, but I did get some, and based on the advice I received, I cut it back to this:

December 2015 - after pruning

It didn't take me long to realise that I hated that as a front, so I started exploring my options, finally cutting them down to three possible fronts before deciding that the one I thought I liked best was probably just a bit too out of the box. All the while I was gradually cutting down on the number of branches, and by the time I took it to a club workshop today, only two remained.

Fig tree - before season's last pruning

I was determined to get rid of one of them, but should have known better than to ask for other people's opinions. Out of all the people I asked, only one agreed with my strange decision, and some even questioned my choice of front, preferring an angle that I dislike.

Sometimes I give in to others' opinions, only to regret it. In this case, however, I was not to be deterred from what I wanted to do. However, after hearing what was said, I did a little unplanned wiring to the leader. I also tweaked the front ever so slightly.

Fig tree - March 2016

In spring I'll repot it again, because I really want to bring it a bit more upright, more or less how it looked when I tilted the pot for this photo.

Proposed angle for repot

That will require a bit of root work though, because there are some really heavy roots at the back. After that I'll leave the side branch to thicken a bit, but I won't let the apex grow too much higher because I'm not planning to let it thicken much more and I really want to start working on ramification.

Decisions, decisions

I apologise for harping on about my fig tree, but decision-making has never been one of my strengths and I really feel like I need to commit to a front before I go any further with its development.

When last I wrote about it,  I had just done a drastic pruning and defoliation after I repotted it, ending with a naked tree that looked like this:

December 2015 - after pruning and defoliation

Over the last month the tree has put out quite a bit of new foliage on some of the branches, though it still has a few bare patches. But there was enough there for me to feel I could take it to another meeting and ask for more opinions from members of my club, some of whom had not been at the December meeting. Unfortunately the more opinions I got, the more confused I became. Of those who were prepared to offer an opinion, no two people seemed to pick the same angle and I came away with five different fronts to choose from.

Since then I've spent quite a while examining the tree from all angles and even shot a video of it slowly rotating to try to get a more three dimensional view than any photo could show.



After making a few slight adjustments to the angles suggested by my fellow club members, I eventually cut my options down to the three I've marked in the video.

Front 1

Potential front 1

I know this looks nothing like traditional bonsai, but I like the way most of the curves are visible, while the one bend I dislike is hidden away at the back of the tree. The base also looks thicker from this angle than from any other. Some branches will have to be removed, but the same applies to any front I ultimately choose.

Front 2

Potential front 2

The bend I dislike is more visible from this side, but still doesn't look too bad. Watching the video back, I'd probably rotate the tree slightly anti-clockwise if I went with this option.

Front 3

Potential front 3

The more I look at this one the less convinced I become that it's one I'd really consider. The angle at which the curve comes back to the front is problematic because parts of the rear section are visible while others are hidden. And in a two-dimensional photo, they look more like straight lines than like curves anyway.

Branches

As the focus of this tree is on the curvy trunk, it was suggested that I remove all the branches and only grow foliage at the apex. It's an option I'm considering, but the one negative is that it will limit the tree's ability to produce fruit, and I really had hoped that it would give me a fig or two to enhance its appearance in the future.

Back from the brink of disaster

My last post ended on rather a negative note. I'd totally lost my way in trying to turn a young fig tree into bonsai after making a chop that I soon came to regret. My poor little tree ended up looking like this:

August 2010 - extreme chop

Under the circumstances I wasn't too surprised to receive a comment on Facebook saying "I would've thrown it away!"

It's not in my nature to do that though. My trees are my babies, and while there's life, there's hope.

But I really didn't know where to go from there. So I did the only thing I could do - nothing. I just left the tree to do its own thing and waited for it to present me with some new options.

If I'd been working with a different species, it may well have grown a new branch close to the cut, and in time I'd have been able to revert to the original design, but this tree has a mind of its own, so I was forced to work with the leaders it produced.

I would let it grow for a while, then pick the leader I wanted and cut back to redirect its energy in the desired direction. I don't believe that I did any wiring over the next five years.

Finally last week I decided that it was time to commit to what I had. Here is how my peculiar little tree looked in all its overgrown glory:

December 2015 - before pruning

As it was growing rather low in the pot, I took it out to get a better view of its structure.

December 2015 - before pruning

It had developed a lot over the last five years, but I didn't find that view too pleasing so I tried rotating it, and found a view that looked slightly better.

December 2015 - before pruning

Before going further I decided to take it for a critique at my bonsai club. I must confess that I was a little nervous as to how people would view this rather quirky tree that I was trying to pass off as bonsai material. After all, it breaks just about every rule I've ever been taught.

I was in for a pleasant surprise. Once people looked beyond the long sacrificial branches, they could see that what I had grown was a "fun" tree with some interesting curves.

Rather than remove a branch that was in a totally wrong place, it was suggested that I thread it through the first bend in the trunk to give me a branch on the side that was bare. In most cases that would be inappropriate, but for this tree it just felt right, so that's what I've done. Now that branch needs to thicken up until it's in proportion with the rest of the tree.

This was the suggested front:

December 2015 - after pruning

After giving it some thought, however, I wasn't sure that I like that angle. I prefer this view:

December 2015 - after pruning

I haven't totally committed to it yet, but if I do, I'll need to remove one small branch which is coming straight forward. For now, however, my final step was to defoliate the tree to help it recover from having its roots pruned.

December 2015 - after pruning and defoliation

I know this tree won't be to everyone's liking, but I'm quite pleased with how it turned out after such a disastrous beginning.

Losing My Way

I've mentioned previously that one of the benefits of belonging to a bonsai club is the help and advice I get from other members when I attend our club's workshops.

Of course an important factor is learning which advice to follow and which to ignore. Follow the right advice and you may end up with a far better tree than you would ever have imagined. Follow the wrong advice and you may lose your way, as I did with this tree.

In late 2007, shortly before I joined my club, I bought a young fig tree at a flea market. At the time that this photo was taken I'd done no styling. The stick was there for support and was probably there when I bought it.

Young fig tree, October 2007

As it was young and thin, I didn't rush to do much to it, but in early 2008 I replaced the stick with bonsai wire  and left it to grow.

February 2008 - first wiring

I don't remember how long I left that wire on the tree, but clearly it wasn't long enough for it to do its job because by the end of the year the tree had developed quite a slant and I really wasn't happy with how it was developing.

December 2008 - slanted

What I hated most however was the big empty section of trunk above the first two branches, so a few months later I decided to chop the trunk back and see what happened.

Trunk chop, May 2009 - early winter, hence the ugly foliage

The tree responded well but I still wasn't happy with where it was headed, so in March 2010 I took it to a workshop. This is how it looked before that workshop.

March 2010 - before workshop

The first advice I received that day came from a man who believes in working with the branches a tree has to offer so he advised me to wire that back branch into a more horizontal position. Normally one doesn't have the first branch at the back, and in this case I felt it looked totally wrong, so when he left I asked another member for his opinion. He agreed that the back branch had to go, and after I'd removed it, the tree looked slightly better, but not very interesting.

March 2010 - after workshop

He also suggested a far more extreme chop, but I was reluctant to do it, so I put the idea on the back-burner for a while. However a few months later, as I looked at its bare silhouette in early spring, I had second thoughts.

August 2010 - early spring, before chop

So, following his advice, I removed everything above the first branch, leaving me with this:

August 2010 - extreme chop

I think I was happy with my decision at the time, but I soon came to regret it. The slant of the tree just didn't seem to work with the chosen style.

In the five years since then I've allowed the tree to follow a really strange path, and I'll write about that later. First I want to take it to the club for critique and see if I somebody comes up with a better path for its future than the one I have in mind.