Big old fig tree with a narly trunk.

[Peterji]

The "black snake" is a Golden-crowned snake. Venomous but not considered dangerous.

Yep I agree. Looks like a Golden-Crowned Snake Cacophis squamulosus. Generally regarded as venomous but harmless to humans.
Personally I'd be loath to cut back this tree til I'd considered the possibilities of thread grafting some of those long, flexible branches. A very nice find with great potential!

[Paulneill]

Pirre this tree is doing very well, about a month after the heavy root prune and repot I decided to cut back some of the branches . It has been left to grow ever since, the pot is sitting on the ground to allow the roots to escape. It has back budded very well and is a mass of foliage now . I have big plans on how to bend the branches this summer. I'm going to build a wooden frame up around the tree and use screwed rod to pull the branches into position.

I will get some updated photos on soon.

[Paulneill]

After cutting back early summer

[Paulneill]

4 months later it has grown well.
I under watered it after the root prune and it dropped a lot of leaves and some leaves had scorch marks on them. But didn't take long to start growing well.

[Pierre]

Thanks for the update Paul, really looking forward to your project growing... Especially the way you will get those branches in the positions wanted. I have heavily pruned a couple of old potted Figs, just taking a good care of them and waiting for them to shoot back so I can get to where you are now...
Cheers and thanks again,
Pierre

[sheepdawg]

any update of this guy?

[Paulneill]

I ended up selling this tree because I moved to wa. I had big plans for it. I was going to pull all the branches down using screwed rod. Could of been a cracker.

Broke my heart getting rid of all my trees.

[NAHamilton]

Could of been a cracker.

Don't give up hope

I haven't done heaps to it, just reducing the height slowly. I'll post a picture and a bit of a plan over the weekend.

Cheers,
Nigel

[Paulneill]

Awesome Nigel,

its good to see you on here to continue on with this tree and and to share its progress.

[Andreas]

I have cut all my Benji's to bare trunk or branches, they all came back good. Now what the best time for you tree is, I can't say. Here in Indo you can do it any day. I have some with very little soil on slabs, they doing just fine. I water twice a day and fertilise once a week. Very nice tree to work with. Love to see the future of what you decide to do.

[sheepdawg]

I ended up selling this tree because I moved to wa. I had big plans for it. I was going to pull all the branches down using screwed rod. Could of been a cracker.

Broke my heart getting rid of all my trees.

aw damn


Does anyone know how to achieve a similar look though? I was thinking that I could braid a few individual plants together and let them grow out or I could plant something in a PVC pipe then put that into a pot, let it grow out then take it out someday? (I drew a pic). Thoughts?

[NAHamilton]

I don't know if the pipe would work as you effectively as once the plants fused and hit the edges you would end up with a perfectly straight round trunk with no taper. Something I've noticed on this one with the plaiting or twisting is bulging areas and from some angles it looks quite flat. These can be used in the design but worth being aware of.

I started another last October, with about 10 cuttings of a QLD Small leaf. I squeezed them together and wrapped them with grafting tape. They seem to have fused OK, some areas still need a bit longer but i'd say they'll be fine come this October. From there I intend to root some cuttings, place them around the fused trunk and wrap with grafting tape again. Rather than having all of these go straight up in the air, I'll bend them out where I want my branches to be. Confused? Me too I'll take a couple of pictures when I get the Benjamina one for you and Paul.

There is a really good article about a Gede Merta tree which I think was in Bonsai Focus. It is what got me thinking more about this. It's similar to the link below but Gede began with a living trunk and I think just added branches.

https://shanemartinbonsai.wordpress.com ... project-2/

Cheers,
Nigel

[sheepdawg]

I don't know if the pipe would work as you effectively as once the plants fused and hit the edges you would end up with a perfectly straight round trunk with no taper. Something I've noticed on this one with the plaiting or twisting is bulging areas and from some angles it looks quite flat. These can be used in the design but worth being aware of.

I started another last October, with about 10 cuttings of a QLD Small leaf. I squeezed them together and wrapped them with grafting tape. They seem to have fused OK, some areas still need a bit longer but i'd say they'll be fine come this October. From there I intend to root some cuttings, place them around the fused trunk and wrap with grafting tape again. Rather than having all of these go straight up in the air, I'll bend them out where I want my branches to be. Confused? Me too I'll take a couple of pictures when I get the Benjamina one for you and Paul.

There is a really good article about a Gede Merta tree which I think was in Bonsai Focus. It is what got me thinking more about this. It's similar to the link below but Gede began with a living trunk and I think just added branches.

https://shanemartinbonsai.wordpress.com ... project-2/

Cheers,
Nigel

good point on the smooth edges Nigel. Now that I think about it, it might look pretty unnatural. I'm also doing a fusion of sorts, but I'm using larger cuttings and air-layers from a hill's fig that I removed a branch from. Here's some pics





I also have a bunch of smaller cuttings that I'll add to the bunch in spring and I'll probably make some more to make some faux aerial roots and to add more character to the trunk

[NAHamilton]

Hi Sheepdawg,

The fatter cuttings definitely give you a head start. In the photo is the one on the left shorter than the others? It looks like it could be a good spot to start a first branch from.

It's possible to graft aerial roots onto branches, I read something about that by Gede Merta too. I've got a feeling it and the other tree were somewhere in this facebook group. Neli who runs it is a member on here but I haven't seen anything from her for a while.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/977930838890171/

Cheers
Nigel

[sheepdawg]

Hi Sheepdawg,

The fatter cuttings definitely give you a head start. In the photo is the one on the left shorter than the others? It looks like it could be a good spot to start a first branch from.

It's possible to graft aerial roots onto branches, I read something about that by Gede Merta too. I've got a feeling it and the other tree were somewhere in this facebook group. Neli who runs it is a member on here but I haven't seen anything from her for a while.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/977930838890171/

Cheers
Nigel

Hey Nigel. Yeah, the one is shorter than the rest. I'm planning to grow a fat branch from it, and hope that it will look like a fat aerial root fused with the main trunk, but we'll see how it goes