Specialty Gardening: Pre-bonsai, 1 by tapla

tapla wrote:
Ok - I took the pics and completed the work. I'll kind of narrate what I was thinking and describe what I did. I probably won't get done posting before dinner (I have marinated flank steak in the smoker - oink), so if you'll hold your questions or comments until I'm done with the pics, it will be less confusing for anyone else following along.

Three or four years ago, I conducted a workshop with Ficus b 'Too Little' as the subject material. This tree was exceptionally ugly, and no one wanted it, so I took it home & set it on the grow bench. I probably cut it back hard to establish some sort of future canopy shape. I know I repotted it because it's in the gritty mix, but I didn't remember anything in particular about the tree because I only looked at the roots once & regarded it as pre-bonsai material.

The pots are by Sarah Rayner, and I intended to put the plant in one of them after the work, but it took more than I thought it would to straighten out the root nightmare, so I wanted a larger pot with a greater soil volume to allow the plant a year to recover. As you'll see, I ended up putting it in an 8" Tokoname training pot.

The tree before starting:



This message was edited Jul 18, 2010 5:59 PM