I realize now that I never made a post about this tree, so here’s a two-parter. I bought this Ficus from Scott Lee (Blue River Bonsai) on Facebook back in August. I call it the “Royalty Ficus” because it was once in Suthin’s Royal Bonsai Garden.

Here’s the tree as it was back when I bought it:

Majestic, right? Well, it was doing well for a little bit, but then began to go downhill. As you can see, it was full of leaves. Those began to fall off until the leaves were toward the ends of the branches only. It got too cold outside, so I brought it in and set it under a T5. It still fussed and dropped leaves. I noticed the soil was staying consistently wet, so I gave it a small repot.

After noticing that that didn’t really help either, I changed things up. The tree hadn’t pushed any new growth in a couple months, really since I had received it. I did the only logical thing, I built an ICU. 

The tree, as well as some natalensis cuttings, went into the ICU last week.

I covered the top with a piece of plexiglass and set the light on top. A week later, I’ve noticed the first sign of growth on the Royal Ficus.

It’s small, but it’s a start. I like to use these PVC ICU’s because they allow both heat and humidity to build up in an otherwise dry house:

So that’s where we are now. Fingers crossed that this keeps up!

Ryan

Hey guys and gals,

You may have noticed I haven’t posted in a couple of months. There’s a good reason for that: I no longer have any trees. Over the past few months I’ve slowly been selling off my collection, partially due to a lack of interest, and partially because of a lack of time to care for the trees. Mites were savage and relentless, and I just watched my trees yellow and fall apart. So I ended up selling them to a couple of local hobbyists who still have that “bonsai passion.”

Fear not, for my love of growing trees is still alive and strong. Instead of growing Ficus bonsai, I’m considering growing Ficus FOR bonsai. My idea is to start growing seeds again, the very thing that got me into the hobby in the first place. What I’d like to do is grow the harder to find species such as ingens, virens, and some others, from seed with the specific purpose of using for bonsai later down the road. Meaning once the seeds sprout and have grown a bit, I’d wire movement into them and do rootwork that will give them great futures as bonsai. I’d then sell them to those who love to grow Ficus.

What say you? Would you be interested in this?

Ryan

Today I did a thing. I traded one large tree for one small tree. It may sound dumb, and looking at pictures it may just be dumb, but in the winter smaller trees are just easier to deal with. Less foliage means less lighting needed.

This is a tree I recently received, but realized was too big for me: 

It’s a gorgeous microcarpa, but in order to fit it inside under lights it’d have to be reduced by a lot. I also don’t feel I have the styling knowledge necessary to take it to the next level.

So today I visited a friend who owns a 700 acre farm down the road from me. He’s bought all my trees off of me over the past year or so, and he was willing to trade this guy. What did I trade for? A tree he had bought from me that I regretted selling to him a while back. This Shohin Willow Leaf:

It’s not in the best health right now because he’s had it indoors since he bought it from me, but I’ve got it outdoors where it should bounce back nicely. This is a fantastic little Shohin with a great future and I have missed it dearly.

It will also be much easier to handle indoors under lights. Stay tuned.

I’ve been getting notifications every now and then that I would get a new follower on this blog and I’d think “Oh, that’s neat.” I checked my follower count tonight and I’m up to over 50?! You all are cool, thanks for that!

I gotta be honest with you all, I’ve been doing really well with not buying any trees, but last week I cracked and bought one. Just a small one. A little Willow Leaf Ficus with some nice flaring to the base. I’m currently in talks with the seller on eBay as when it arrived the soil was bone dry. Not an ounce of water to it. The pot was wrapped in plastic, but it’s kinda pointless when there’s nothing actually keeping the soil wet.

Here’s the little guy. I don’t know what I’m going to do in the winter, I have no lights or anything. Should be interesting…

And I am planning on chopping here at this red line IF I can get those bottom branches to come back to life. The shipping without water thing certainly didn’t help them.

It should make for a pretty sweet little shohin one day. But until then, it’s a fun little project. My first in a while….