AusBonsai

Hi Everyone, One of my figs that was badly damaged in a storm a few months ago.As you can see the top was broken off , so no head or branches on R/hand side. Hope you guys can give me some ideas on restyling it. Thanks
regards bonsaiboy50

Bonsaiboy 50.....After the darkness comes the light,as they say...could the light yer looking for include, a trunk chop just above the bottom branch...or even lower (eh Jamie! )...the branch might serve as a new leader and provide some taper...could be a soution....Dog.

I would use the greenery thay was still present at the apex(seen on the back view) to create a crown while trimming down the main branches foilage. Develop a couple of nice foilage pads over a couple of years and 'Hey Presto' an informal upright root over rock similar to what we see done with Junipers.

Just my two cents worth

Good luck,

buddaboy

it looks like you have a new leader growing up top there, you may have plans already, but my thoughts are, chop back the foliage my 50% or more and this should encourage the tree to pop buds down lower! then rebuild the tree from the new shoots chosen, in a tropical climate this could be done in a matter of a few months with a continuous grow season, but i didnt check where you were

will get the same effect in a hot house or if you are having some warm weather, anything between 20-30 degrees is ideal.

or you could do what B-Dog says and trunk chop the sucker and sumo-erize it! eh B-Dog



jamie

Sumo-erizing sounds like fun Jamie...but as you know it's always harder when its your own tree....well,for me anyway! sometimes it's good to just bite the bullet and some great results can come about...there's some young canine fellow around here, keeps trying to teach us to see the smallest tree! I think I can see some good stuff in the background of shot one as well, Any further pictorials BB50? ....Dog.

bonzaidog wrote:Sumo-erizing sounds like fun Jamie...but as you know it's always harder when its your own tree....well,for me anyway! sometimes it's good to just bite the bullet and some great results can come about...there's some young canine fellow around here, keeps trying to teach us to see the smallest tree! I think I can see some good stuff in the background of shot one as well, Any further pictorials BB50? ....Dog.

by golly i think your right about some fine stuff in the back ground B-Dog!!

and its hard to chop down to start with but on the other hand once you do it a couple of times you get used to it and then you get some wicked results!

jamie

B/boy. I favour chopping at the black line and working with the first branch. You might wish to pot it with less lean next time.
If you air-layer where shown instead of a brutal chop, you will have two usable trees.

The second bit of foliage on the right... I'd cut to have that as the new leader. Trim the large left branch back heavily to get more growing energy up to the new apex and let the fig start off from there.