The Consequences of Over-Aggressive Pruning

Although I've been known to do a trunk chop from time to time (with mixed results), when I chop my trees I often err on the side of caution, cutting back to the lowest branch and waiting for back-budding before cutting back further. It slows the progress, but it's a safeguard against disaster.

When my succulent cuttings didn't sell in October 2017, however, I decided to throw caution to the wind with them, leaving only minimal foliage on one of the thinner cuttings and none at all on the rest of them. On the advice of a senior member of my club I'd done a similar chop on another thick succulent a few years back and, though the tree's recovery was slow, the result was satisfactory. I had no reason to suspect that things would turn out differently this time.

Perhaps October (late spring) wasn't the best time of year for this operation. Perhaps I did something else wrong. I just know that where the two thicker trees were concerned, things did not go to plan.

The thinner trees quickly produced masses of new growth everywhere, with only minimal die-back, allowing me to remove excess new buds within weeks.

November 2017 - not much to do on this pair

The first pair didn't need much work, but the one below was getting quite top heavy so I cut it back hard. I also removed the dead branch on the left.

November 2017 - before

November 2017 - after

The thicker trees were a lot slower to respond. By November they were showing signs of die-back on important branches, with little new growth high up and lots of tiny new buds at the base.

November 2017 - little new growth with nothing high up

Detail of the base of the above tree

November 2017 - little high growth and dying branch at base. New buds at
base not shown.

Perhaps if I'd removed some of the lowest buds I'd have got better growth higher up. Then again the trees might have died and, though they weren't trees I really wanted, I didn't want to take that chance. I hate killing trees.

By early January the thinner trees were doing really well.

January 2018

January 2018

Unfortunately, while the new buds at the base were growing strongly, the trunks of the two thicker trees had continued to decline. By now the thick branch at the base of this tree had deteriorated so badly that it snapped off with no effort, leaving a rotting hole which I attempted to carve away.

January 2018 - hole where branch had snapped off, before carving.

I was beginning to suspect that the entire trunk would be lost and developments over the past month make it seem my fears are justified.

February 2018 - carved hole, one month later.

The other one isn't looking much better, though there's no rot, so part of the trunk may survive.

January 2018

As I'm trying to cut down on the number of trees in my collection, I put the two thicker trees on my club's raffle table last Saturday. While they'll never be the trees I'd hoped they would be, in time someone may be able to develop them into decent clump style trees.

As for the remaining trees, I'm contemplating putting those on the raffle table too. Given their better condition I may do it in April, when my club is hosting an all day meeting attended by members of the other clubs in the region.

Still Struggling with my Three-in-One Ficus

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.

My Struggles with Ficus Benjamina

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.

Photo updates can be found here.

Options for the Topless Ficus

After I wrote my last post I started to have serious doubts about taking the topless ficus to a workshop in case someone talked me into taking drastic action that I would come to regret. In the end, however, I decided to take it along, but I was determined that no dramatic pruning would take place.

My mentor wasn't available for the pre-meeting workshop so I turned to the club's youngest member for advice. He's only 16  but he's extremely talented and I felt confident that he wouldn't push me in a direction I didn't want to go.

I'd already realised that the top branch couldn't be pushed as far upwards as I'd have liked, so his suggestion that I change the slant of the tree seemed like the best option.

With the enthusiasm of youth he was keen to reduce the weight of the foliage on the lower branch so I allowed him to do that. Then, knowing that he's one of the few members of our club who actually enjoys wiring and more importantly does it well, I asked him to do a bit of wiring for me.

When he was done the tree looked like this (displayed at approximately the proposed slant):

After the meeting I got the opportunity to show my mentor (who has previously worked on the tree) what had been done. He felt the bend was too high up and suggested this:

No, I haven't chopped it back to the first branch, and I have no immediate plans to do so. Although it may well be the best option, doing so would slow down the tree's development dramatically.

What I am contemplating is scarring the tree opposite the top branch and possibly at the back in the hope of getting a couple of extra branches high up. That would open up the possibility of creating a broom style and keeping the trunk upright.

While I haven't made a final decision on the way forward, I'm feeling a lot better about this tree than I did a week ago.

The Topless Ficus

I've managed to accumulate a few problem trees over the years, but right now I'm really frustrated by a recent acquisition.

Back in April I was hoping to enter the Reddit bonsai group's Annual Nursery Stock Contest even though I knew that it was the wrong time of the year for such an undertaking given that I live in the Southern hemisphere.

In due course I bought three trees which I hope to turn into bonsai one day, but I quickly eliminated two of them as candidates. I immediately got to work on the third though. This is what it looked like when I bought it.

Ficus Nitida as purchased - April 2016

I quickly removed some dead and 'useless' branches and tried rather unsuccessfully to create something that looked like it could become a bonsai fairly quickly.

First styling - early April 2016

However, from the start I was not happy with the result as the tree was much too tall for my liking and the leader was growing too far forward.

I quickly realised that this was not going to be a short term project so I took it to a workshop two weeks later, with the intention of cutting back to the branch marked below, though I was a bit concerned about creating a big scar facing straight at the viewer.

Side view showing leader growing too far forward

My mentor had other ideas however, and I came home with my tree looking like this:

After workshop - mid-April 2016

Although I knew this was going to be a long, slow process, I'd have been happy to continue from that outline, but unfortunately my tree had other ideas and the new leader died leaving me with this:

After removing dead leader - July 2016

In this photo the top branch had been cut back in the hope of encouraging new growth at the top of the trunk, something which still hasn't happened.

My tree is growing quite happily on both branches, but refuses to produce any new growth above the top branch. This is what it looks like this week:

November 2016

At the moment the only possible solution I can see is grafting a new leader, an idea which doesn't appeal to me. Besides, there is die-back at the site of the cut, so I'm not sure how successful that would be.

I'm considering taking it to another workshop this weekend, because this one really has me stumped.