[Nate] - Port Jackson Fig

[Nate.bonsai]

Here is a PJF that I started from a cutting taken from my other PJF (see my other post: [Nate] – Port Jackson Fig – Chunky), probably around 2015 (maybe a year or two earlier?).

It was a branch that I had let shoot straight up, about 1 metre long and thumb-ish thick. I threw it in a pot and ignored it for 3-5 years.

I was actually growing it as a pot plant to break up a large brick wall on our balcony. I let it grow and bush out. It was probably about 1.5 metres and had three big upright branches and plenty of greenery. But, after it had filled out a bit, my bonsai eye started to wander over to it.

So, in about 2015-ish I sawed it off about ¼ of the way up the trunk, repotted, root pruned and planted it on top of a plastic pot tray, hoping to encourage a flat spreading root growth. As with the other one, I’d let branches shoot for about 1 metre and then chop everything off, rinse and repeat. No thought or plan, just letting it get fatter.

There’s probably been one repot between then and now.

No earlier pics, but here it is at repot today – one from the front and one looking down at the fairly evenly spread roots. The big, flat round cut is from where I chopped down the trunk when I decided to re-requisition it for bonsai.

Front before.jpg

Root spread before.jpg

After trimming the roots, some old branch stubs and tapering off that big old, flat scar a little. ‘Trimming’ the roots is putting it lightly. The tree had grown some very thick roots, about three that were as thick as my wrist. What were initially aerial roots had developed into ‘real’ roots and settled as almost a separate layer of roots just above those old thick roots. So, for the most part I used my large knob cutters and gouged out those old thick roots from underneath and left the newer root layer to take things from here. Potting the tree on a plastic pot tray for the past handful of years worked great. The root spread underneath is big, broad and flat like a dinner plate.

Front after.jpg

Root spread after.jpg

This is probably going to be an informal upright. When it reshoots, I’ll pick a new leader and then actually put some thought into branch selection and development now that the roots and trunk base have a good start.