Transforming a House Plant

I don't remember when we acquired our first schefflera, but it was almost certainly over a decade ago. Technically it wasn't my plant, though I was always the one tasked with caring for it, and it was never intended to become bonsai. Even now I'm not sure it ever will be, but it's certainly benefited from the bonsai skills I've learnt along the way.

The schefflera spent the first few years of its life living in our entrance hall, a room which gets very little natural light and no sunlight at all. It's a testament to the species that it survived in that environment, but somehow it did. Originally it had three thin trunks with foliage high up, but one day I discovered that it was possible to do a trunk chop on schefflera to encourage branching, so I decided to experiment with one trunk. Sadly my experiment didn't have a happy ending as, in my ignorance, I covered that trunk with plastic and misted it frequently. With the benefit of experience I'm sure that trunk died of root rot. Fortunately the other two survived.

Some time later I decided to try again, but this time I left them uncovered and didn't give them excess water and in due course they started budding again. The only photo I could find from that period was this one, taken in November 2008:

November 2008

Although they were growing back fairly well, the foliage looks rather floppy and weak. Hardly surprising given the fact that they were still in the same dark position that they'd inhabited for several years.

By then I'd joined my bonsai club, and one day it occurred to me that they might benefit from a bit of time outdoors with my other trees. Somewhere along the lines I also moved them to a bigger pot.

In the end that move turned out to be permanent as it was impossible for me to impose darkness on them again once I'd seen how much they benefited from their time outside. Not only did they firm up pretty nicely but they have since produced several branches and even one rather strange aerial root:

Roots - August 2016

The biggest surprise however, was when they produced flowers and berries for the first time two or three years ago. I've never seen that on another potted schefflera before or since.

This is what they look like today, full of flower buds waiting to open:

August 2016

Sometimes I'm tempted to turn them into bonsai, but they have terrible nebari and I'm reluctant to sacrifice the flowers, so my pruning is always restricted to those areas which don't have flower buds. As a result the prospect of them ever becoming bonsai seems unlikely. But, like my indoor vs outdoor experiment with ficuses, this is a clear illustration that even plants which can survive indoors will be a lot happier outside.

What a difference a season makes!

When I shared my post Bonsai Artist in Training at Reddit a few weeks ago, one of my readers asked what the tree I featured in that post looks like now. As I was still busy moving blog posts from my previous domain, I wasn't able to write an update then, but I promised I'd write one as soon as I could find some time. So here it is. Better late than never!

This is actually the second update, but the first one, The Benefit of Experience, was written way back in January, long before the question came up, so it showed a seriously outdated image.

Several weeks before I wrote that post I'd decided that  my little tree needed to go back into a training pot to help improve the branch structure, but soon after that I'd foolishly undone a lot of the good work by going overboard with what was meant to be a minor trim. My poor tree was looking horribly naked at the time:

January 2016 - after severe pruning

I vowed to go easy on it after that and did no further pruning until yesterday.

Despite the fact that it's late winter here, this tree had put out substantial new growth, especially at the top:

August 2016 - before pruning

This time I was a lot more conservative with my pruning, only shortening branches that had grown too long. In fact on the two lowest branches I cut nothing at all.

August 2016 - after pruning

One bit of unwanted new growth I haven't removed is this bud near the base of the tree:

Unwanted new growth

I've got a bit of reverse taper at the first bend and I'd be really happy if letting it grow for a while would help fatten up the area where it's growing. Worst case scenario I get a big scar there, which isn't a major problem as Ficus Natalensis heals really well.

I've done all I plan to do for now. It's up to the tree to do a bit of growing and hopefully it will guide me in the right direction. I can't wait to see what it decides to do next.

Looking for Ideas

I mentioned the convention our club hosted in 2013 when I discussed the olive tree I worked on at one of the workshops I attended.

At that workshop one of the delegates was working on a large cork bark elm. As I'd never seen a cork bark elm for sale, I was delighted to receive one of the branches she removed from her tree and was really happy when the cutting rooted. This is what the little tree looks like nearly three years later.

It will never be a big tree, but the trunk diameter of 2cm (0.78 inches) is acceptable for a tree with tiny leaves like an elm has. Unfortunately it has a few problems:

• there are no low branches
• it's too straight after the first bend
• it has bad reverse taper at the first bend.

About a year ago I took the tree to a workshop where I was advised to air layer it at the first bend. This would have solved both problems and would probably have given me two trees to play with. Unfortunately I never got around to doing it.

With spring on the way I realise that now is the time to act if  I don't want to waste another season. But before I commit to the air layer I thought I'd see if  there was a better option. I haven't taken it to my club yet and won't be able to until the middle of August, but I've found that I get some good suggestions online too, so I shot a quick 360° video  to include with this post.

Do you think I should go ahead with the air layer, or can you suggest something better?

Spring Came Early

Well actually that title is wishful thinking, but some of my trees certain seem to think that it's true.

A case in point is the mulberry tree I rescued from my pavement a few months ago. Under normal circumstances I would have left it outdoors unprotected through the winter. However the root system is so new that I wasn't prepared to risk killing it, so, since nighttime temperatures started dropping below 5°C (41°F) I've been putting it out during the day and moving it into my greenhouse at night.

On 1 July I noticed the first signs that the buds were starting to swell, and now, less than three weeks later, it's already got quite a lot of young foliage. This photo of a young leaf was taken two days ago.

I wasn't surprised to see this happening to a tree in a sheltered environment, but yesterday I had a glance at what remains of the parent tree and discovered that the buds on that one are starting to swell too. It's growing right next to a west facing wall, but that's all the protection it gets from our "cold" winter nights.

Cold, in my climate, is still relatively mild of course. The lowest we've been so far this winter is 2°C (35°F), though it's likely that things will get worse before they get better. In fact, despite the fact that today has been pretty warm, the forecast for the next week is worse than anything we've had the whole winter. We're also expecting some unseasonal rain.

The good news for me is that spring really isn't that far off. By this time next month I expect to see new foliage on a lot of my deciduous trees.

Time for Work

I'm embarrassed. When I welcomed you all to my new home I said I hoped to get all my content moved here by the end of June, possibly accompanied by some new posts too. I'm afraid I've been rather lazy. I've been spending far too much time procrastinating online, neglecting both my blog and my trees.

Last night I finally moved the last of my old posts, so I've got no more excuses. It's time to get back to work on my trees. Despite the fact that it's mid-winter in South Africa, some of them are really crying for attention.

Expect some new posts really soon. Hopefully this time I'm not promising something that won't happen.

Mother Ficus

Mother Ficus is one of my oldest surviving trees. She's the ancestor of every Ficus Natalensis I own.

I found her in the bonsai section of a local nursery about ten years ago bearing the label "Ficus", with no indication of what variety she was. All I knew was that she wasn't a Benjamina, which was the only variety of Ficus that I owned at the time, but that was enough to convince me that I should give her a home.

She was an ugly little tree with a trunk about the thickness of a pencil and terrible branch structure, and once I'd bought her I didn't really know what to do with her. Back then I didn't know enough about bonsai to have the faintest inkling of how I could improve her appearance. Instead I decided to propagate what proved to be the first of many offspring - the tree which appears in my introductory post and is also the subject of an article which I published at HubPages several years ago.

A few months after I joined my club I decided to see if something could be done to make her look better, so I took her to a workshop. The organiser took one look at her and recommended a trunk chop. Instead of an ugly tree, I went home with a sorry looking stump about three inches high, uncertain whether she'd live or die.

Eventually a few weak buds sprouted at the site of the chop but by then there was far stronger growth coming out of the base of the trunk. This was not what I had expected!

Once more I took her to a workshop.

"That's your tree," I was told.

My teacher was referring to the strong new stem coming out of the roots. I wasn't delighted when he told me to remove what remained of the old trunk, but reluctantly I followed his advice. Now all that remained of the tree I'd bought was the roots.

Eight years later Mother Ficus is happily living in a bonsai pot and has been on show at my club a few times.

Mother Ficus - June 2016

She'll never be a show-stopper but she's a far better tree than I ever hoped she would be. Her biggest weakness is her poor nebari (roots) but hopefully in time I'll be able to fix that too.

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Linking up with NF Trees n Bushes.

Welcome to My New Home

This blog was born on 11 September 2015.

In early May I began to contemplate moving it to a new domain, so I stopped writing updates. Not blogging about my trees has really been hard for me, but I didn't want to continue until I found it a new home. About a week ago I finally committed to Blogger and slowly started rebuilding my blog.

Right now I'm nearly half way through posting my old content and by the end of June all my old posts should be here, hopefully accompanied by some updates on the trees I wrote about in those posts. And I can't wait to introduce you to some of the trees I haven't written about before.