This ficus has been in this remarkable container for..ahem..four or five years, without a repot. I’m sad to say it needs a bigger pot. Sad because I love the pot and the tree combo.

Today, I’m hanging out, selling my wares and shooting the shit (as I’m known to do) at the Brevard Zoo. No, I’m not joining the swamp ape exhibit as the first living specimen ….

…the Bonsai Society of Brevard has an annual show at the zoo, uh…every year (I guess that’s what “annual” means), and I’m here (or there. Sometime the tenses get mixed up in my wandering and rambling prose style. I think it adds flavor and character. Some people say it drives them crazy. I say to those people that their insanity was there already, and I just exacerbated it, allowing it to blossom into the full blown psychotic episode that they’ve been waiting for their whole lives. You see, some people need an excuse but we of lesser gods, we know you don’t…..).

Above, we have the local fauna, Floridanus nativitus, below, are some imported beasts, Giraffa camelopardalis.

And my wife, or, as we call her on Da’ Blog, “She Who Must Be Obeyed”; she’s from Indiana.

Now, since you know where I am, and what I’m doing, and I’ve gotten in enough trouble with the wife, let’s get back to the tree.

The job is to remove the tree from the pot.

For those “in the know”, it’s really really really (really) advised against potting a ficus in a pot that has an inwardly curving lip.

Ficus (I’m going to pronounce that the British way, “Fick-us”, as I’m feeling all fancy right now), make roots. Lotsa roots.

I have to bring in a highly specialized (and imported) root cutter (and sod cutter too, I guess, if you read the handle. But I just don’t see myself on my knees, my face in the grass, cutting out pieces of sod).

But first, the inevitable cutback and defoliation.

You don’t need to see that part, just scroll back to the hundreds of articles I’ve written and in which I’ve described the process.

I will, however, note that this tree is the species standard Ficus microcarpa. And that means I leave a little green on the tips so there won’t be dieback.

Now to the hard part, removing the tree from the pot. First, cut the tie down wires, on the bottom and top.

Then we start cutting around the pots perimeter.

As shown below.

Not too hard with that tool. I usually use a steak knife (which was stolen from The Sizzler Steakhouse and Buffet) but it’s at home in The Book. The gentleman I’m speaking with is Doug, The Hippie Dad.

Now to birth the tree. Another video. Yes, I’m using my scissors. They worked. I use my scissors for many things I’m not supposed to use them for.

Looks like a tortoise mouth, right? And again, that was Doug. Thanks for the muscles.

The pot was made by Daniel Holderer. He called it “Cradle for Life”.

I’ll find something else to put in in. It’s been a good container for this tree.

Now to rake out the roots.

It’s just a little root bound.

I brought three pots with me to choose from. Two of those antique Japanese pots with the weird green clay, and a beautiful oval from my friend Cesar Labrador.

The oval one’s too small…

….the rectangle one’s about right, but the style is too formal for my “Tropical Broom Style” ficus….

….ahhh, this one is just right!

Some screen, tie down wire….

Soil….

And we are done.

Looks good back on the bench at the nursery.

Tropical Broom Style. I made that up years ago but I think it’s appropriate for this ficus. And everything was made up in the beginning anyway. Whoa! Wait! Mind blown! Right? You mean you can just make up things?

Indeed you can, indeed you can….

This work was from February or March of this year, 2024. It took me that long to figure out where the comma goes in the title. And which words to capitalize. Not really but an excuse is an excuse.

So, with that said, here you go, a little late is all…

An Ilex vomitoria “schillings”. From my student, Sharon. She grows them in her landscape and has some impressive bonsai specimens as well.

But this one came from a Bonsai Societies of Florida convention workshop from several years ago. I’m not sure why she took the class, but she did, and I get to work on it. The yaupon holly is one of my favorite species and this one is fat and chunky.

I believe the trees for the workshop were collected somewhere in Brevard county. By the Bonsai SOB’s.

I know, bad joke. But clever. The Bonsai Society Of Brevard: Bonsai SOB’s.

One of the clubs that’s seat to my heart and I consider it a home away from home (I belong to the Central Florida Bonsai Club in Orlando).

For clarification purposes, Sharon lives in the Tampa/St. Pete area of Florida. Opposite coast from Brevard.

My Job, which I did late winter early spring (for y’all confused peoples out there) is to prune, style, and repot this old tree into this classic oval-shaped bonsai pot.

Damn what a sweet trunk. Like an ancient oak tree out of a story, maybe a Robin Hood and Maid Marion fairytale, enjoying a late spring, early evening stroll amongst the fireflies and sweet blooms of Nottingham Forest.

And that hollow, or, as they call it in some Japanese bonsai nurseries, an “uro”. Roll the “r” in the Japanese way.

Let’s get into it. Those concave cutters are ready, looks like.

Snip!

There are a lot of branches, which is good, more to choose from. The craft of bonsai is knowing the most amount of branches to remove from your tree and still survive. The art of bonsai is knowing what to keep so your tree still looks like a tree.

Craft, knowing the whens and hows to cut. Art, knowing the whys and becauses.

Early spring (in Florida that’s mid-February) the tree begins to push new growth. Below, that new growth has begun to harden off.

Now’s a good time to get some cutting in.

This’ll be quick, so pay attention.

Sharon has been selectively pruning for movement, as you see below.

And if I had the druthers, I’d make some warriors roasted yaupon tea with all the leaves on the ground.

There we go. Lookin’ good.

A mind puzzle for ya’ll:

I have a farm.
There’s a drought, but I have a deep well.

It’s drying up, but there’s still water left to live off of to water the crops and for the animals and my family.

Maybe enough until the rainy season.

Maybe.
My house, where I live, catches fire.
Do I let the house burn down or do I use up my water to put out the fire.

For the smarty pants, those two options are your only choices.

What should I do?

Now that’s a root ball!

The tree is old in this pot and well established. Ilex like good drainage and this depth pot is well suited for it. But aesthetically, the art part, it’s not.

That’s a question, why do we use shallow pots when, horticulturally, a deeper pot is better.

Not many know. I’ll ask this question during demos and I’d get answers like: it helps to dwarf the tree, or, it slows the growth. The only reason is it makes the trunk look bigger.

Bigger trunks look older. And that’s what the Art of Bonsai is: making a little, young tree, look like a big and old tree.

In fact, most of all the craft of bonsai, and the soil components and composition, are there to serve the art.

Take the roots. We know that the roots are responsible for most of the water absorption and nutrient uptake. They’re also the main storage facilities for excess sugars for those lean times a tree has to endure. The only reason we use expensive aggregate as soil is to increase drainage when we put our trees into shallow containers. Bonsai soil is not magical, and it’s not really suited for deep containers, as it dries out too fast (there’s a lot to say about that, but those posts have already been written. Start at this post: Akadama, the Ideal Bonsai Soil and follow the related posts at the bottom), but it works for bonsai containers.

For this tree, and its roots, it’s been prepped for a more shallow container, but there are still a few roots to get rid of.

I’m not worried too much about chopping those big roots (they hold the sugar remember) because the species grows fast and makes tons of sugars. So just leaving the feeder roots (the small ones) is good enough for the health of the tree. Knowing that (to continue the theme) is the craft. You have to learn the craft just as much as the art part.

The tree is healthy enough to handle this rough treatment.

And I know how to sharpen my scissors, so I don’t want to hear anything about using my good scissors on the roots. But you shouldn’t. Do as I say, not as I do.

Here’s a crossing root. Kinda straight too.

Cut it off and that’s what’s below it. It’ll puff back out, but it was beginning to girdle the lower root.

And I might just need a shoe horn. Maybe I should advise American Bonsai tools to make one…….

And it fits! Bob’s yer uncle!

I’m still on the fence with that first branch on the right. I can’t bend it, so Sharon either lives with it, or we cut it off.

You read earlier that this tree lives in St. Petersburg FL. If you’ve been reading the news, you should know about the two hurricanes that have impacted the Gulf Coast of Florida. Sharon stayed for Helene, but she evacuated for Milton. I don’t have the heart to ask her how her trees have fared (her house and family are well).

This year has been trying, especially for those in the path of Helene; Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and especially North Carolina. I had very little damage, just a little debris. All I did was sweat a little cleaning it up. But there are people who’ve lost everything. The towns they live in are even gone.

All the loss of life is devastating. I have no words for it.

If you have a way to help, please do.