Some Ficus Shohin Repottings

nickbachman

Sapling
Messages
39
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75
Location
Los Angeles, CA
USDA Zone
10
My Tiger Barks are waking up early this year, so I'm starting to the repot. The first one, I call the Peanut Butter Ficus (it'll make sense momentarily). It was purchased at a regular nursery and was growing next to a schefflera in the same pot. I found that it had large tuber roots under the soil, so last Spring I trunk chopped it and cut off the tubers flat at a wide point. In late Summer, I planted it on top of a 5" peanut butter jar lid. Going to be letting it run pretty wild this season to fatten up the roots. It looks good from a number of angles, with some pretty mean taper. 4" across the base at the widest, 5.5" tall. Will post a potted photo in a few weeks when there's some growth.

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The next tree is one I got last year from @Redwood Ryan . I wired it all up last Spring and it was growing great, then we got a heatwave in LA while I was out of town for the weekend and this thing got toasted. Lost all its branches, but popped out some new buds all over. I let it grow wild for the rest of the season and just chopped it back. It's got some nice movement, and I hope to build the base more this year with some more unchecked growth. I planted it on top of a plastic disc to aid in root spread. It's about the same size as the last tree.

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And the last one for now, a Root-Over-Rock I chopped and started last Summer. It looks like it might have some root rot, hopefully I can get it worked out with a drier mix this year. Going to let this one really run this year too, to thicken up the roots. The roots/rock were wrapped in florists tape for the past season, and were re-wrapped before planting again. This one also got zapped in the heatwave last summer and lost a lot of its branches, but it's coming back. Thinned out the branching and wired some primaries, while leaving some sacrifices to grow wild.

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My Tiger Barks are waking up early this year, so I'm starting to the repot. The first one, I call the Peanut Butter Ficus (it'll make sense momentarily). It was purchased at a regular nursery and was growing next to a schefflera in the same pot. I found that it had large tuber roots under the soil, so last Spring I trunk chopped it and cut off the tubers flat at a wide point. In late Summer, I planted it on top of a 5" peanut butter jar lid. Going to be letting it run pretty wild this season to fatten up the roots. It looks good from a number of angles, with some pretty mean taper. 4" across the base at the widest, 5.5" tall. Will post a potted photo in a few weeks when there's some growth.

tZjfrE7.jpg

gJgg9na.jpg

bWGuMeQ.jpg

oK1ujYn.jpg

NRWUQ8I.jpg

6aoqBSE.jpg

CWRD7XC.jpg
All are very nice little shohin. I would've used a screw to secure this guy though.

Aaron
 
Thanks Aaron! I agree. I must say that when I wired it to the jar lid last year, it was sort of an impulsive move. I wasn't planning to use a tile type device, but saw that rigid plastic lid sitting in our recycling. Didn't have the proper screws on hand, so I had to improvise haha it's not pretty, but it works. I keep a wedge under the corner of the pot at all times to keep water from pooling on the lid.
 
Some explosive growth on the jar lid ficus! This is after chopping off much, much more rootage. Worked like a dream! Totally flat on the bottom, many radial roots and a lot of ariels. Now to work on some branch structure. Should make a nice multi trunk/apex tree.
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What did you do to get root growth like that? Is it in a greenhouse? Nice work.
 
What did you do to get root growth like that? Is it in a greenhouse? Nice work.

No greenhouse, in fact it was out in the dry SoCal air. I started making my soil out of cheaper stuff I could get from the garden center. 3 parts pumice, 2 parts lava, 1 part (maybe less actually) fine orchid bark. It’s quire porous with a pretty big range in particle size. Fertilized well with osmocote, Iron Tone, and azomite. I also let them grow wild after the photos were taken. But they didn’t get bushy, just leggy.
 
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