I’ve only had this tree for about a year now, but the changed are drastic. Even without the foliage this tree has great strength and presence. Additionally this type of ficus is so easy to work with, and it perfect for bonsai because of its small leaves. A rewarding tree at any level of experience.
I have been looking for a clump style bonsai for a long time, but never have been able to find one that I really liked. However yesterday when I visited Jim Smith’s nursery I was able to track one down. This is a pretty large planting, and will take some work to get it right, but it is easy to see that this will be a great bonsai one day.
Raw clump pre-bonsai
Here it is as I bought it. It never fails to amaze me when I see the small amount of roots needed to support so much foliage.
Clump repotted
I wanted to do a few things by repotting this tree. First I will get a wider root base. So when I repot in to a more shallow pot in the future I will have more surface roots. Also I need to get more energy to the top of these trees so I can develop more branching. Also I want to add another trunk on the far right side to balance the tree. Right now I have 6 trunks and I need to get to an odd number and 7 is the goal.
A few weeks ago I worked on my shohin ficus nerafolia to get it back into shape. As you may remember I priuned this tree pretty hard to get it close to the trunk. Well just a few weeks have gone by and the tree has pretty much completly filled in and regained its great shape.
New foliage on Ficus Nerafolia
It still needs so refining, but it won’t be long until my negleted little tree is back in show shape.
Even though my bonsai collection has been greatly reduced over the past few years, I still find it challenging to keep up with it. At times I am actually overwhelmed with the wiring, pruning, repoting, etc that goes along with bonsai. However I find no greater satisfaction then when I maintain a tree and get it back under control.
leggy ficus
Take this tree for example. I worked very hard to reduce the branches a couple of years ago, however I wanted to give the tree a chance to recover healthwise so I’ve let it grow out. Problem is now the branches are leggy and too long for the trunk. I’m thankful it’s a ficus nerafolia.
Trimmed up Ficus
All it takes to regain control of these trees is to cut the branches back, way back. These trees will break back beyond the green. This means that when you cut a branch back you don’t need to leave any leaves. There are trees such as junipers, Brazilian raintrees, boxwoods in which the branch will die if all the leaves are removed. In the case of the Ficus Nerafolia you don’t have to worry.
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