My Current Collection

Redwood Ryan

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Hey all,


So after having money issues and having just too many trees, I decided to sell probably over half my trees and keep only the large ones. These are (most of) the ones I have now:
J9u3uMv.jpg


The two on the left, the one in the back and the one in front, are no longer with me as I ended up selling those as well. Not pictured here is a natalensis I got from the Meehan's, as well as 5 or so small trees.

I just decided that I was going to focus on the big trees and that life would be dandy. Problem is, now I don't have enough lighting for these monster trees, which includes these two beauties:
KxXzD1f.jpg


I currently only have one light, which is an Onyx LED. I gave up on the pink Mars LEDs, as they just weren't the right spectrum. Here's the Onyx light:
wo4RQ8w.jpg

oBGBUTU.jpg

zP56yTd.jpg


It gives off a very nice, cool white and covers a 3x3 area. I plan on getting another one, but will have to figure things out until then. I will probably be moving my trees in this weekend with the approach of the hurricane and colder temps on the way.

Thought I'd update everyone on what's been going on with the Ficus and all that. I'm off to batten down the hatches to prepare for the hurricane. Good luck to all of you up in this area.
 

barrosinc

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Ryan, too bad you had to sell the rest...
Maybe its the push you need to sell the worst ones and have a lot more time to work the best ones. who knows...
 

Giga

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Also I know the pain I'm selling all my tropical as well- just got rid of my massive ficus-bittersweet
 

Redwood Ryan

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you know amazon sell like 4' 12 bulb t5ho grow light for like 130$-that would work well and cheap


Yes, but T5 aren't powerful enough to penetrate down to the lower branches of these trees.
 

Redwood Ryan

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Unless you place them very close to the canopy? They don't run too hot, so they wouldn't burn your leaves.

They run very hot, they would burn the leaves.
 

Redwood Ryan

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Hmm.. I run 4 HO T5's and I keep them about a foot away from my trees, mind you they aren't as big and developed as yours, but I've never seen any leaf burn.

Okay, well one foot isn't "very close" like you implied, lol.
 

f1pt4

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Okay, well one foot isn't "very close" like you implied, lol.

Glass half full half empty. Maybe it's 8" maybe its 10" maybe it's 11 3/8's. I just guesstimated a foot as I' haven't set them up this year yet. The weekend is looking to be very cold and wet, so I might find the time to bring the hardware out of storage. In any case, I'm quite happy with my HO T5's. I have two 2 foot, 4 bay fixtures. They were cheap and cheerful to buy. Might end up being a pain in the ass changing the bulbs every season or so. I only ran them for 4 months last year, so I'm hoping I can squeeze out another season out of them.

With that said, I have no where near as well developed trees as you, so at the end of the day, use whatever works for you.
 
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Consider picking up a couple of clamp sockets with a powerful cfl and place them at pot level. Not gonna work micacles, but it'll help more than you'd think and it'll be cheap to buy and run.
 

Giga

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I''ve used t5ho with no issue 6" from the tree's with no issues and some of mine are bigger then yours. Just run a fan on low on both side and you get circulation and heat is moved away. Done it for years-no burning. Plus you have a led system so just use both
 

Redwood Ryan

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I''ve used t5ho with no issue 6" from the tree's with no issues and some of mine are bigger then yours. Just run a fan on low on both side and you get circulation and heat is moved away. Done it for years-no burning. Plus you have a led system so just use both

Bigger than mine?! Shoot, got any pictures? These trees are over 3 feet tall.

It's not a heat issue for me, it's really cost. The bulbs should be replaced every 6 months or so to keep them effective. Their power drains dramatically.
 

Brian Van Fleet

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This nerifola spend 5 months in a bathtub with light from a frosted east-facing window 6' away and it grew all winter.
October:
image.jpg
March:
image.jpg
Glad I didn't have any supplemental lights on it, or I wouldn't have had a break from pruning all winter!
 

Redwood Ryan

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For me, I also feel like I've become more of a "collector" than anything else. I hate to say it, but I feel like I've lost that artistic eye that allowed me to take a tree from bush to "tree". Granted, I didn't really have that before, but it's gone away even more now. I find that I'd be just fine with keeping a few great looking trees, rather than multiple ones shoved under lights and not ready for several years.
 

coh

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It's nice to have trees in a range of development stages, i.e. some that are well-developed and need fine tuning/maintenance, along with some that are in the early stages. If all you have is stuff in the early stages you do a lot of waiting...chop trunk, wait for next trunk segment to develop, chop, wait...and that can take a long time when growing stuff like ficus in non-tropical climates.
 
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