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

No, this isn’t Frankenstein, this is Ficus. The Royal Ficus, to be specific. 
Today I checked on the greenhouse trees and saw good results. The Royal Ficus is pushing out lots of new growth, and one of the natalensis cuttings is pushing roots out of its styrofoam cup. 

Here’s that picture:

If there is constant moisture on the floor of the setup, the roots will continue to grow. I could place it onto a pot of soil to let the roots run into that instead, but for now I’ll let them go.

As for the Royal Ficus, it pushed an aerial root long enough for me to work with. Here’s the root:

So I took a straw and cut it in half:

Cutting the straw in half is crucial because it helps you remove the straw after the root roots in the soil. Otherwise you’d have to carefully cut the straw off the root. Straws help you guide aerial roots into the soil, so I placed the root into the straw and moved it into position:

You have to be careful not to break the root. The bend I created is cutting it close, but we should be fine. Make sure you keep the inside of the straw moist so that the root can keep growing.

We’ll let that keep growing and I’ll update when it finally does hit the soil.
Ryan

It’s happened, the Royal Ficus has figged. There had been dormant figs sitting on the tree for a couple months, but the other day it pushed new, fresh figs. It’s also full of new leaves and happy growth. 

Looks like the small indoor greenhouse is working well. Thanks T5 lighting!

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

After a short, several month break, I’m diving headfirst back into the hobby. There are two trees that I kept, but sold every other one. Those two trees are a Ficus I grew from seed, and a Ficus obliqua that I received from Jerry Meislik.

Both trees were placed next to the dining room window. The obliqua dropped all of its leaves and went dormant, and the seed grown Ficus began to sulk and drop in quality. The leaves began to weep, which I learned is a sign that the tree got too hot, too cold, or the roots are rotting:

See the sad looking, drooping leaves? I took this picture today, and the tree was repotted a couple of days ago. It used to be in a poor, packed soil that was staying far too wet. It’s now in a mixture of pumice, lava rock, and pine bark. 

Now onto the obliqua. This guy has been dormant for about a month or two. It’s still alive, because a gentle scratch to the trunk revealed green underneath. 

Those little branches are still pliable, a sign that there’s still life in them. 

Both trees went into my signature PVC greenhouse setup to recover. 

I figure if I can get them to recover, it’ll show that I’ve still got the ficus skills that I had, well, months ago.

I received an email a couple weeks ago from someone with Feedspot who told me my blog had recently been ranked in the top 75 best bonsai blogs on the internet. Which, as you can imagine, threw me off.

When you look at real professional bonsai blogs, such as AdamAskWhy you can easily understand why he ranked in the top 75. Me? I hardly update. And for that I apologize because I still get quite a bit of traffic here. Here’s a link to the post for those interested:

http://blog.feedspot.com/bonsai_blogs/
So this is kind of a promise to you all, that I’ll stay on top of things and update with more posts and more winter tips when that does finally roll around. But for now, here’s my little badge of honor that serves as a reminder to keep posting here and keep you all updated.

 

First of all, a very Happy Father’s Day to all those who have the privilege of calling themselves father’s. May your day be full of beer and love.

This is just a quick post about my current collection. I’ve got a few trees, all Ficus of course, and all in different stages of development. Let’s start with this small Ficus obliqua I got from Jerry Meislik a few years ago:

It’s a small tree, but it’s been through quite a bit and keeps on fighting. It went dormant for a few months and lost all leaves. I’m pretty I made a post about this tree a couple posts ago. Here’s how it looked a couple months ago:

I stuck it in a temporary indoor greenhouse and it bounced back.

The next tree is this Ficus virens I bought from Wigerts Bonsai. Check out their website here.

I recently defoliated and repotted this tree, so it’s coming back with nice bright red foliage:

You may be asking yourself “But Ryan, that first branch looks dead?” and you’d be correct. I accidentally stripped the bark from that branch when trying to wire it. Did I tell you all I’m bad at wiring? Cause I’m bad at wiring. For the record, I cut that branch off today just to clear it all up.

The next tree is this shohin Willow Leaf Ficus I got from Jason Schley. You can check out his stuff here. 

It’s a pretty sweet little tree.

Next up is this Ficus microcarpa I bought from a forum friend. Here it is when I first received it:

After letting it settle in, I started work on it a couple of days ago. I repotted it at a new angle, cut away some of the reverse taper that can be seen after the first branch on the left, and I notched the first branch on the right and brought it down. I also shortened the tree because it lacked taper in the upper trunk.

And last but not least, this massive Willow Leaf Ficus I bought from the Meehan’s in Maryland. I haven’t started work on this tree, but when I do it’s gonna be something. This is an older picture, give me a minute.

It’s got a pretty sweet base:

Here’s an updated picture of the canopy, it’s nothing but leaves now. I’ve considered rooting some cuttings and giving them away to some of my blog followers if there’s any interest, but stay tuned on that.

That’s the majority of my trees. I’ve got one small Ficus microcarpa and a ficus natalensis that really haven’t had any work done, but I’ve still got them. I told myself I’m not going to buy any more trees until I’m able to take this raw piece of Willow Leaf Ficus stock and turn it into something decent, but that’s probably not going to happen.
Stay tuned!
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….

 

 

Hi everyone!

Has it really been 3 YEARS since I last made a post?! Wild. Since then I’ve gotten married, had a child, bought my first house with my wife, and fully jumped back into the bonsai hobby. Bonsai means a lot to me and is something that I truly love; it’s a part of me. It’s helped me through some hard times of my life, like when I had brain surgery. I remember repotting trees and visiting bonsai nurseries while I still had staples in the side of my head!

I made the mistake of selling my beautiful collection years ago, and have regretted it ever since. The trees went to a guy down the road from me, and I’m able to visit them whenever I want to, but it’s hard. The trees helped me get through some hard times and seeing them in another home is tough for me.

I’ve started to rebuild my collection over the past couple of years and I’m starting to feel OK with where I am headed. I’d still love the old trees one day, but I’m happy with where I’m going. I’m still growing my trees indoors in a big tent, but now I’ve got a backyard to play around with when the weather is warm enough!

All this to say, I’m back into the hobby and collecting trees at a fast rate. Check out just a few of them below, as well as a quick shot of them all tucked away in the tent!