Helping out a Friend's Ficus

[lieuz]

I went to a friend's house last week and during my visit I noticed a huge plant coming through the foyer and made a comment about how it's getting bushy. She agree and commented how her ficus has gotten out of control and now it's hard to water. She's been keeping this guy on a shelf in front of a window for the past 5 years and has done little to no pruning. Feeling a bit embarrassed, she told me how it got to that point. About a year or two ago, she's noticed that the ficus was getting too bushy; so, she started cutting the leaves off and got a rather unpleasant surprise. She said to me, I can't believe this tree ooze out white sap! YUCK! This is disgusting! I won't ever want to cut it ever again. So, fast forward 3 more years, the ficus is basically neglected (still watered it) and now looks like something similar to a boxwood; for all intents and purposes. She told me she bought this tree for 10 dollars at a nursery and was close to giving up on this tree once she knew she couldn't prune it.

Knowing I am a bonsai hobbist, she had asked if I could do something with the plant. I told her that I am a novice and that I'm willing to apply what I've learned so far if she's willing to trust me with the tree. She of course was willing. To ease her fears, I told her I've worked with a ficus before and that I would give her plant a nice shape up and possibly some wiring to open up the tree. I did tell her that if I do help her with this project, she's going to have to give this tree more attention. She's willing to do what it takes, even buy a pot, because she's really wanted a bonsai and wanted to showcase the plant better since she initially bought the plant to accent her foyer.

It took a week before I did anything to the tree, I replicated its previous normal environment by putting it right by a bright window where it gets direct sun for a few hours in the morning with a morning misting. I did a bit of snooping and found this wasn't a single trunk tree, it was a multi-trunk monster. I did pruning work on it yesterday and found the soil to be just potting mix and it's covering up the hidden nebari (which I just got a small sample of, looks great so far).

I took a lot off the bottom in hopes of propping the many trunks apart to create the banyan style. Here is a picture of tree after I gave it it's initial shape up.

 

[lordy]

You may find you have luck with dividing the trees and making a forest. Or it may already be too late and the trunks have begun to fuse together. If the latter is the case, I might try to bind the trunks closer together (touching, tightly) and hope they all fuse together forming on large trunk. That would take many years to grow together.
It is not surprising that the ficus (appears to be f. benjamina) is in houseplant potting soil. They can grow to fill the height of a room over the years. Or, they can be pruned as needed to keep small. The story in this batch is in what we cannot see, the base and roots. The large fibrous roots can be pruned, usually without much trauma to the tree. So if you can gently pull apart the roots and the trunks are not grown together, you can pot them singly, or in a group/forest, as I did when I bought mine all in one pot from a big box store 15 years ago.

 

[lieuz]

You may find you have luck with dividing the trees and making a forest. Or it may already be too late and the trunks have begun to fuse together. If the latter is the case, I might try to bind the trunks closer together (touching, tightly) and hope they all fuse together forming on large trunk. That would take many years to grow together.
It is not surprising that the ficus (appears to be f. benjamina) is in houseplant potting soil. They can grow to fill the height of a room over the years. Or, they can be pruned as needed to keep small. The story in this batch is in what we cannot see, the base and roots. The large fibrous roots can be pruned, usually without much trauma to the tree. So if you can gently pull apart the roots and the trunks are not grown together, you can pot them singly, or in a group/forest, as I did when I bought mine all in one pot from a big box store 15 years ago.

It's definitely too late. The whole bottom is fused together. I haven't had much time to work with it but that shape up really did it some good. Your forest planting is amazing!

 

[Jmontee]

My suggestion would be to get some raffia and tie all of the trunks together until they fuse into one large trunk. This is done all of the time and gives you the best chance for a nice ficus in short amount of time. With increased pressure in the middle you could even get a bit of flare at the bottom and top.

 

[lieuz]

I am very open to suggestions. Yesterday I brought the tree out and repotted it. It certainly needed a repotting since it started to get root bound. As I've mentioned before, the root has base has pretty much fused itself together; so, it's probably too late to walk that route but I really appreciate the suggestion Lordy (I personally was hoping to find the tree semi loose so I could go the forest planting route to be honest). But fusing of the trunks is also something I'd like to try, thanks for the suggestion Jmontee.

I placed some wires in there for the time being because it helped me prune a bit more and also helped me with trying to find the shape of the tree. I included a picture of what it looks like now once I had the tree repotted.

This was very inspiring and also encouraging. http://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3524
Any insight is appreciated!!