Ficus rubiginosa #2 - Part I

Progression of a collected ficus plant.

I collected this plant back in June 2012.
I know it is of the genus Ficus , but I am assuming it Ficus rubiginosa, commly known as Rusty Fig, Port Jackson Fig, or Little-leaf Fig.
It is a plant that develops in cracks on walls and is common all over Mauritius.
Sometimes it grows on roots or electrical poles.

Ficus rubiginosa #2 - Part II

ASK PERMISSION BEFORE COLLECTING
In this case it was collected from my own wall in the garden.
But if you are collecting from someone's else garden/wall, be sure to ask permission first!
Do not collect from parks or public gardens without permission from the garden's administration ( usually forestry services )


Collecting the plant and first repotting
The plant was growing on a wall, with some long lateral roots that we reaching for the ground.
I started to collect the tree at the end of summer / start of winter ( i.e. that's around June/July here )



I tried to remove the plant with as many feeder roots as possible, but there were nearly none to be found.
In the end, I simply removed some long lateral roots and sawed the plant off the wall.



I applied some rooting powder on the sawed area and further removed any unwanted roots.
The rooting powder can be obtained in nurseries or garden centers, such as espace jardin or vaneron garden.
Usually ficus species do not need any help to start throwing new roots. So this step is purely optional.



The plant was re-potted in a bonsai substrate (bonsai soil) made up of :

• 40% - river sand (sand used in aquariums) 
• 20% - baked clay pellets 
• 20% - perlite 
• 10% - crushed pine bark
• 10% - potted soil mix

And here is the final product, not much of a looker.
Well its not a bonsai yet.
Basic plan for it to turn into a bonsai over the next years:

• Create a compact and tough root ball of feeder roots
• Develop a nebari [ Surface roots that will give the illusion of an old tree anchored in the pot ]
• Toughen the main trunk
• Create primary and secondary structures
• Create ramification [ i.e. ramification is the divergence of the stem and limbs of a plant into smaller ones, i.e. trunk into branches, branches into increasingly smaller branches, etc. - this step will also encourage the formation of smaller leaves as well as define helps recreate the form and ultimately give the illusion of a full-size tree ]

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Checking on the roots and starting the nebari

After several weeks, the leaves have matured and developed.
New sets of leaves have also appeared.

New Leaves = New roots.
Its not an absolute rule, but new leaves would also mean new roots have had time to grow in the meantime.
It was time to check if there was indeed new roots and to start the creation of a compact root-ball.



The new root system that developed going in the right direction for my taste.
Lots of feeder roots close to the trunk, not a tap root in sight.
Only those two lateral roots were out of place.



Below - After the two lateral roots have been removed.
I could just leave them for another growth cycle or two, but I felt that the tough root-ball near the trunk was good enough to sustain the plant for now.



Creating the nebari : Spread the roots to form the future nebari ( surface roots )
This is only the first step, as the roots will grow and thicken, they will become the base of the future bonsai.


After 3 weeks I went ahead and made an initial styling.
At that time I did not have any aluminium bonsai wire, so I used what I managed to find on the local market.
In this case a 0.7mm galvanized binding wire.
You can get those in "quincaillries" or espace maison / espace jardin, or in hypermarkets like Jumbo, Shoprite.


There are thicker diameter wires of 1mm and 1.5mm available, but they are too hard to bend without damaging the bark of the trees. So I personally don't recommend them for bonsai use.
Below : Left wire is the 0.7mm wire, right is the 1.5mm wire.

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Follow up on the nebari

After several months of leaving the "wee tree" to its own devices, there were several aerial roots that formed and proceeded to grow out of the pot.





Initially I went ahead to made a basic re-potting to place those escaping roots back into the pot, but during the process I found two thick lateral roots.

The lateral root does not absorb nutrients for the tree, it is mainly a "highway" to transport nutrients and water from the feeder roots that are at its extremities to the leaves and vice versa.
In a normal plant that grows in the ground, it would grow long in search of nutrition and water for the plant and most of the feeder roots would form at the end of those lateral roots.

In a bonsai context, since we are placing the plant in a small container, we want as much feeder roots as possible close to the trunk to maximise the plant's needs. The lateral have no purpose in this case.
If we let it develop further, it will only grow thicker and product more feeder roots further from the trunk.

I went ahead to remove those thick roots.



Back into its pot.



Out of the points that I needed to cover in my basic plan to turn this plant into turn into a bonsai over the next years, I've started the following points (Those points above have been started but NOT completed. It is is an ever-going process.)

• Create a compact and tough root ball of feeder roots.
  At every re-potting, I will need to check on the root-ball to make sure that the lateral roots or tap roots are not taking over. 
• Develop a nebari [ Surface roots that will give the illusion of an old tree anchored in the pot ]
  I might need to make corrections to the nebari [ remove roots that are becoming too thick or promote thinner root to allow them to thicken to fit into the design ]
• Toughen the main trunk.
  The main trunk will continue to thicken slightly as new branches develops. At this stage there is also a risk of reverse taper occurring.

I now need to start on the following points:

• Create primary and secondary structures
• Create ramification [ i.e. ramification is the divergence of the stem and limbs of a plant into smaller ones, i.e. trunk into branches, branches into increasingly smaller branches, etc. - this step will also encourage the formation of smaller leaves as well as define helps recreate the form and ultimately give the illusion of a full-size tree ]
• Optionally : Give some shape to the trunk and branches, ex. via wiring.

Ficus rubiginosa #2 - Part II