fusing a clump of ficus

[Jamie]

hey guys

you will probly know this one from my thread ficus clump possiblities. i decided fusing it was the way to go, because it would eventually do that anyway and it would of had reverse taper.

so this is a shot of it about a 2 months or so ago, maybe a bit more.

figr1.jpg

and then about 3-4 weeks later it got chopped down to this, at this stage this is where the thought proccess went from clump to fuse

ficus clump 001.jpg

after some selction of trunks i tried to weave them in and around each other as much as possible, some trunks didnt want to move, others were very bendable.
this is where the first lot of graft tape went on to hold the basic shape

ficus fusing 001.jpg

ficus fusing 002.jpg

and a side veiw

ficus fusing 003.jpg

from here i worked my way up the tree, using wire to hold some of it while wrapping the graft tap around nice and tight but not to tight it will swell up on either side .

ficus fusing 005.jpg

ficus fusing 006.jpg

from there it ends up here, a couple of main branches were selected, and the rest just left to grow, i kept as much of the foliage as possible to keep it strong, i will have a few leaves lost as they have been wrapped in the graft tape as well... collateral damage as such

ficus fusing 004.jpg

from here plenty of sunlight, lots of feeding and good water and it should boom, i expect this to take approx. 18 months to fuse at the top section where they are touching and a fair bit longer for the base, i think it will create quite an interesting base trunk and nebari though, it will have plenty of hollows and be quite "grooved" i guess

so let me know what ya all think i hope this has helped some people in inspiration of the possibilities of a $12 tree, this will work i am sure. especially being ficus and in queensland ya cant kill them if you try


jamie

[EdwardH]

Looks very good. It should develop a fluted trunk which will look great. This is an absolut bargain for $12

[Jamie]

thats the word i was looking for edward! fluted, and yes that is what i am hoping for

and it should work out well

jamie

[Asus101]

its going to look like a bulb......

If you kept all the stuff you cut if use them as cuttings to later fuse into any gaps. Really all you needed to do would have been to give it room to grow and a lot of feed. Some cut flaps on the trunks then packed spag moss may help the fusing. It may still help if you do it just where it reverse tapers now, once you have decent roots from the trunks, train them out to complete the taper.

[dayne]

looks good ive done the same but i used all the cuttings to fill the gaps and as the top grows to long cut it and keep adding around the base will come back in two years

[Jamie]

asus, this was an initial thought, and i did keep the cuttings and have tried to get them to strike, i thought i had better success than i did, ive got about 5 out of 30 cuttings struck
thats not an issue though, this is quite a common species available here and i have others aswell

as for it looking like a bulb this is one thing that i have to look at as a catch 22, if i left it going straight it would of ended up with reverse taper even moreso, this thing is sends out airial roots like crazy aswell, so i have a few options to go with this one

jamie

[Jamie]

asus, just to make you feel a bit more at ease this is my plan for an overall vision,
i am even thinking going full banyan style with aerial roots coming from the canopy..

i didnt draw that in, it is just quick and dirty, i do intend on getting a better root flare though..



jamie.

[Bretts]

Keep trianing it Jamie it will get where you want I reckon!

[Jamie]

just an update the fusing process is going along, i was just wanting to show the amount of new strong growth pushing from this one since the last you seen it which was only about 2-3 weeks ago

ficus clump.jpg

jamie

[Jamie]

another little update, after this growing so strong i decided to place some wires on and get a bit of direction of the foliage. its not looking perfect but its better than what it was and for it to be at this stage after not so long its going really well


looks a bit like an umbrella right now

clump wired.jpg

my resoning behind this was to allow all the foliage to get as much light as possible to help thicken the trunk up a bit quicker


jamie

[anttal63]

good work jamie its certainly putting on growth;

[Jamie]

good work jamie its certainly putting on growth;

cheers mate yea i am quite happy with its growth rate right now, i am hoping that it will be thick enough that the trunks touch in about 18-24 months, thats big hopes but ya never know with these guys, they can thicken quite rapidly

the foliage is going nuts though aswell i think it loved getting cut right back


jamie

[techpetal]

Hiya Jamie,

Have you thought about grafting a few small ones into the cavities in lower trunk to close it in rather than waiting for them all to thicken?

It would be a freaky cross section for a few years (hollow) but it would give you that buttress trunk quicker and potentially and awesome root spread if you picked and wired carefully.

Tech

[Jamie]

petal i have got several cuttings that i have taken that have struck roots, i am just waiting on these to be strong enough to be used in that idea. whether i graft them in or just place them in the cavities to fill in the voids the results will be the same, and the good thing about using the suttings is that they are genetically the same which means there will be no variation in bark colour/texture and no change in leaf shape etc. either

i know it will take a while but this will be a long term project to get it to where i want but it will be worth it, using the cuttings in the right way will imporve the nebari dramatically, as asus stated earleir it is bulbous, causing a bit of reverse taper, this will eventually be fixed with the cuttings too

jamie

[Jamie]

heres a pic for an update, as you can see from the original pic it has grown quite a lot since the plan right now is to just let it grow grow grow so the trunks can fuse together

Fig clump.jpg

jamie

edit- as you can see i havent moved it to far out from my "corner" as i cant lift to much at the moment