Should I? (Ficus advice)

[StoneCloud]

Another nursery close to Miami I used to get trees from. If you haven't check them out

 

[SniffingKrylon]

@StoneCloud nice, I didn’t know. They’re only about 45 minutes away. I’ll check it out, thanks.

 

[KennedyMarx]

It looks so much better chopped down to just that bottom section and the new branches. Good job.

 

[GrampaMoses]

View attachment 283425

First of all, awesome transformation! You've done a lot of really good work with this tree.

I can't help but looking at the most recent styling and thinking to myself it looks very... conifer like... in the styling. Straight horizontal branches with no bends.

I tend to style my ficus much more wild, lots of movement, and the ends of each branch pointing slightly up. Here's an example of a ficus (microcarpa "tiger bark" just like yours) that I styled last year.



You've got a nicer trunk on yours though and with pruning back, you can certainly add more movement to your branches in the future as the tree develops. I just thought I'd give a different perspective and something to consider when styling ficus.

 

[SniffingKrylon]

@GrampaMoses thank you. The branches even in the pictures right after being styled are already fighting the wire tension, I want them lower. Before the wire you can see everything moving upwards, I want this tree to be on the shorter side so if I start with everything going wild it will end up being a much taller tree. We have huge ficus in my area and I’ve taken note of the older trees wider trees the lower primary branches sag only coming up towards the end. The secondary branches are almost parallel to the ground and then anything smaller than that gets wild. As you move up the tree the growth starts reaching higher. The tree looks very different bare, once it leafs out it will look less cone-ish.

 

[SniffingKrylon]

A few weeks after repotting, still a bit worried because I cut a LOT of root. Crossing my fingers for this one.

 

[SniffingKrylon]

Update... left the leaves on lower right branch to concentrate energy there, much too thin. Also, left the top as sacrifice.

 

[penumbra]

Fanfriggentastic transformation.

 

[SniffingKrylon]

@penumbra thank you.

 

[Hartinez]

Tree looks very cool. Excellent work!

 

[SniffingKrylon]

@Hartinez thank you

 

[SniffingKrylon]

Update: trees doing better, scars healing up well.

 

[MHBonsai]

Quality work right there. I wouldn't be afraid of bringing some of the upper branches forward and concealing some trunk. Nicely done.

 

[SniffingKrylon]

The growth on these trees amazes me. This scar has closed up significantly in these past few weeks. I wanted to wait to do work on this since it had a rough couple weeks with fungus but I might just go ahead and do that work in a week or so. Bottom left branch needs to be corrected because all the branches are on one side and it looks bad. I had guy wired the branches down because everything was reaching for the sky.

Aug. 3rd:



Aug. 22nd:



and Aug. 26:

 

[SniffingKrylon]

I wish I could have kept the pot but the tree definitely outgrew it. Happy with how this one is turning out. Photo drop from the work done today.

 

[Redwood Ryan]

Seriously, fantastic work with this tree. Really nicely done.

 

[Shibui]

Ficus are one of 2 genera I have noticed that continue to thicken quite rapidly even in a small pot.

 

[just.wing.it]

Sweeeeeet!
Moving right along, nice.

 

[boguz]

I fell in love with this tree

 

[Hartinez]

Just getting better. Only thing i would say, is maybe its time to start working on a better nebari? You’ve done such a great job achieving your vision for the trunk, branching and canopy, but the surface roots need some love. A nice and wide radial nebari would really set this tree off. With as hardy as this tree is, I’d imagine a simple ring around the base where you want roots and a nice back fill of sphagnum and substrate would do the trick.