Ficus Methuselah.jpg
This is a tree to which I have great sentimental attachment and will be well known to many bonsai growers in north Queensland. It was one of the first bonsai I saw when I went to meet my bonsai teacher when I was a kid and it had a great impression of age on me then. It is one of the first trees she grew and is now a very old tree, knobbly, gnarly and warty and with four species of lichen on the trunk. My wife and I call it ‘Methuselah’. It is approximately 50 cm tall and it has now been in this same Japanese pot since it was last restyled thirty years ago. My teacher is 82 and one of my best friends and we regularly have a bonsai-trimming day together. Yesterday this tree became an heirloom when she gave it to me for Christmas. I could not have been more moved about receiving a tree. I began to gently wire some of the branches last night and to trim to encourage ramification. It is a large-leafed tropical fig from north-western Queensland.Merry Christmas
Ash