New Umbrella Tree

Purchased a new Umbrella tree (Shefflera Aboricola) from Bonsai West.  I wanted a tree to bring into the office but wanted something that would survive the subdued lighting and dry air.  Aboricola sounds like it is vertually indesstructable.  I obtained a small 250 mm hogh specimen that looks as if it were wired before from the trunk scarring.

I decided to try and wore/sty;e\le the tree to an informal upright, even though I know these trees tend to be styled in a multi trunk banyan style.  I was able to wire the branches and cut out many that were shading each other,  Hopefully, I'll have a much happier/healthier tree.

Rejuvinating a Ficus

A colleague of mine had a ficus which i believe is a microcarpa, in need of some help.  It had a great deal of foliage loss, some death of surface roots and after watering, the drainage looked very dark in color.  The tree was in a very small pot, which was cracked to boot.

After lifting the plant from it's pot, my worst fear was confirmed.  Many of the roots were blackened and dead, especially two larger roots which girdled the whole tree.  These were cut away and I removed some of the crusty, upper soil with chopsticks.  The top of the soil was hard and gritty, almost as if there was some salt buildup there.  I did not remove much soil in order to preserve the few feeder roots that were still on he plant.

I picked an oval green glazed pot which had a larger diameter but actually a slightly more shallow depth, being closer to that of the trunk diameter and wired the tree in.  Since foliage was so sparse and the tree was stressed, I decided to do no wiring or branch pruning at this time in order to maximize the leaf surface area as we go into the low light of winter and the recovery period from the tree repotting.  I did; however, tilt the tree pretty dramatically to clearly establish a new apex for future work.

In this new orientation, the dead second trunk now becomes a dead side branch which can be cut off later if need be.  Actually, it is an interesting feature and is so large, I worried about excessive bleeding in removing the branch now, in the trees weakened state.

After adding a rock for decoration and giving it a drink, the ficus was ready for return to its owner.  It really is a beautiful little tree and I hope to see it much happier a year from now.

Went to my first "Get Wired" Class at Bonsai West today. I thought I would try some of my newly learned pruning skills on some poor unfortunate Juniper tree that I purchased for $5.00 from Home Depot in Nashua, NH. It was a Parson's Juniper, Juniperus davurica 'Parsonii', often confused with Juniperus chinensis. 

The plant I picked had a great deal of foliage, but what attracted my attention to it were two 1 1/2" inch trunks which I thought might make a nice looking cascade style bonsai. I started by clearing out the mass of dead and unusable material at the base of the plant and then removed it from the pot to view it from all sides. I identified a front face and saw that the joint of the two heavy branches I hoped to use as a cascade was below soil level. Out instructor, Phil, said it would be OK to use the lower branch as a first branch to cascade anyway and use the second heavier branch as a second branch if I chose a new apex. This sounded like a good idea and would work only if it were possible to bend the heavy 1st branch downward and forward. Since the branch was so still, it needed some protection from bending so I learned how to prepare a raffia wrap. After soaking the raffia and placing it on the tree, I wrapped very heavy gauge wore around the trunk.

It bent with some difficulty but there was some splitting sound. No way to tell how it fared until we see how the branch survives the winter. I also cracked the apex branch which required my cutting it short and selecting a new leader for wiring. After final bending, I jut back all of the growing tips, expect the leader, back to last year's growth to induce back bud formation and to shorten the branches. Re-potting will wait until the spring. The finished product:

Here are the intended branch lines. Both the 1st and 2nd will be cut back and the 1st will most likely be angled downward if it survived this round of bending. The extra branches on the 1st branch will remain in case they are needed to take over as future branches.