Three little figs
Can I plant them together to become something greater than the sum of their parts?
So I have these figs. They’re cuttings from my two ficus pre bonsai and they’ve been sitting in rooting medium for a while. Time to do something with them!
I also have this crystal. If any rockhounds out there know what kind, please share. For a while I’ve been thinking about incorporating it into a bonsai design. It previously served as the centerpiece for a moss planting as seen below.
I had a really nice crop of moss going for a while. Then it all dried up, now matter how much shade and water I gave it. I have no clue why.
It’s funny looking back at this photo from March 2021. Half of the trees in it have died. I was forced to take down the shelf they’re sitting on. All part of the bonsai learning curve, and a good reminder for me that practicing bonsai isn’t about any one particular tree. Bonsai come and go. I just work here.
Anyway, I have these figs. I think I can use them for a group planting anchored to my crystal.
That’s better.
These are good roots! One of the advantages of growing trees from cuttings is the relatively radial root pattern that forms perpendicular to the trunk: tailor-made for shallow bonsai pots.
My idea is to position the crystal like so and arrange the cuttings around it so they meet at the top.
Like this.
Eventually they’ll fuse together, and with a plastic bag acting as a humidity dome, the lower trunks should extend roots that latch on to the rock and wind their way into the soil. The crystal has good notches all around where I can snake the cuttings upwards, like vines rising from a mountain crevice.
You’ll have to imagine seeing these cuttings attached to the crystal with rubber bands and wire. I’m still working with one arm down.
Surprise! I bailed on the crystal planting. No matter how I positioned the three cuttings, they looked awkward. It was harder than I thought to fit the cuttings to the crystal’s edges. Maybe if I had two good arms, but still. The aesthetics weren’t coming together. Even with three young cuttings that lacked much character, the design wasn’t doing anything for the individual trees or the crystal.
So I broke them up into individual pots.
This cutting had the beginnings of a nebari and some nice lower trunk movement. I’m working on separate group ficus planting and I think this tree will complement the others well. Into a four-inch pot it goes to thicken up.
I’m not sure what to do with this noodle yet. I may fuse it to one of my larger fig trees at some point, or add it to my fig forest, or give it away. We’ll see. Back it goes into its two-inch pot, but with coarser soil, which should help it grow a stronger rootball.
This soil is what I affectionately call my garbage mix. It’s a jumble of discarded garden and bonsai soils mixed with whatever leaf litter or other junk I have around. Many houseplants died to bring us this assortment of peat and bark chips. It’s good to see another use come of them.
This is the cutting I’m most excited about. Instead of climbing up the crystal I’m making it grow down this two-inch pot in a full cascade design. I’ve never tried one before and am nowhere near skilled enough to do it right. Still, I have to start somewhere.
I also want to keep this cutting real tiny, a mame (mah-may) tree in bonsai lingo. Mame are the smallest of bonsai at just two to six inches tall.
Unless plans change again. We’ll see how these figs respond to their repot and how they grow over the winter. The crystal returns to my curio. I’m sure I’ll think up another ill-advised project for it soon.
Tree reading
I love this story: malfeasant Italian tree pruners, searing government incompetence, and two whole boroughs bereft of properly maintained trees caught in the crossfire. [The City]
Cute profile of a grassroots LA tree fan who’s documenting the city’s street trees on Instagram. [Los Angeles Times]