AusBonsai

One of my smaller figs. This rock seemed to suit it well . Love to know what you guys think. Tree was collected and has been trained for about 10 years and in bonsai pot for 3.

Your fig looks really nice you sydney people are so luck we struggle a bit with them here. I would love to see your tree after you have spent a few years working on the foliage. The air roots are great do you have any special techniques for developing them ?

Aerial roots are all about humidity. You'll need to seal the poly tunnel.

Lovely tree. A few more years of defoliation and you'll be looking at a lovely well ramified tree.

You been working on it hard for 10 years and all they can say is 'wait a few years' sheesh, its gorgeous bb, but my birthday isn't for a while yet!

when you defoliate remember to wire it will make all the difference in the outcome of the ramification, if you can get a hold of leong kwongs boof "ficus in the temperate climate" it will be like gold if you have a few ficus in your collection, it is worth every cent, and if you do get it and dont have many ficus, you soon will

nice tree by the way

jamie :

Thanks for the kind replys. As for airial roots I have found it depends greatly on the individual tree. Some figs throw roots very easerly while others will not regardless what you do to them. There are 3 things you gan do to get airial roots
1 wait many many years and hope you get some
2 sit tree over tray of water to create humidity
3 can be risky but if you stress your tree ie minimal water and low nutriants it will force the fig to send out roots. I only use this technique with stock plants and NEVER with my established tres.
I will post some pics showing my results using these techniques
regards Bonsaiboy50

jamie111 wrote: if you can get a hold of leong kwongs boof "ficus in the temperate climate" it will be like gold if you have a few ficus in your collection, it is worth every cent, and if you do get it and dont have many ficus, you soon will

jamie :

Jamie, is it worth getting this book if you are in the tropics like we are?

Glenda

Here is a pic showing roots on my figs

yes glenda, for sure, it is very relelevent to us aswell!

if you can get a copy go for it

great pictures for inspiration to!
and there is pictorial case studdies, it shows alot and how long it takes, up here it is a bit quicker

jamie

edit- sweet airial roots BB, make sure you remove them before they thicken the branches to much causing probs down the track though

Looking good Bonsaiboy, would be good to see the Fig over rock in a nice shallow pot it would extenuate the trunk and rock.

I love that last fig, BonsaiBoy. I want to know how to get aerial roots to thicken. With most of mine, once they reach the soil they go brown and shrivel up, getting thinner. How can I stop this? You can see them on my PJ Glenda

hey

nice root over rock looks very good, my first root over rock failed horribly with a fig, i had it bund ot the rock for 2 years and the tree grew crazily but when i unwrapped it drom its securings it fell straight off so i decided to make it a tree next to rock instead
i really like the look of that tree though with all the airial roots, can you get some pics showing the whole tree i would really like to see what it looks like as a whole. it looks exactly how im wanting to get my figs to look, i would like to know how you created that tree, with all the trunks coming out of it makes it look very natural for a fig, it would be great to know how you got all tose trunks on it. probably a dumb question but im really impressed by it and want to know how you did it
great trees

Hugh

Glenda. You must be very carefull with airial roots when they reach the soil. If the root tip is broken it will die, which can happen if the root encounters hard soil. I train my airials with wire ie place a wire where i want the root to grow and get the root to follow it. When the root gets close to the soil i make a hole in the soil for the root to enter . Once it is in the hole i fill it with loose soil and water well. Might like to try this , it works for me.
regards bonsaiboy50

Just more roots

bonsaiboy50 wrote:Glenda. You must be very carefull with airial roots when they reach the soil. If the root tip is broken it will die, which can happen if the root encounters hard soil. I train my airials with wire ie place a wire where i want the root to grow and get the root to follow it. When the root gets close to the soil i make a hole in the soil for the root to enter . Once it is in the hole i fill it with loose soil and water well. Might like to try this , it works for me.
regards bonsaiboy50

Thanks for the advice. I have mine in diatomite. Should I put some soil over the top, or will there be enough spaces between the diatomite for the roots?

Glenda