Too tall benjamina

[gin_boon]

This is a picture of my 15 yo ficus grown from seedling but left with my parents in townsville to become a bit wiry and tall. Would people agree it needs the trunk chopped and branches to develop? Since in adelaide now was going to wait until summer and hopefully put the cuttings in a mix to grow a new fig?

Any suggestions please?




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[delisea]

Hi Gin-boon,
Great potential. Check out this blog: adamaskwhy.com/ There are some fantastic examples of figs just like yours. Remember that he is in the Northern Hemisphere so timing is 6 months out.
Cheers,
Symon

[wattynine]

Hi GInBoon, I'm in NTh QLd so my timing will be a little different to yours but we have begun working on our figs already in August and thru Sept.
If I may suggest, I think this last cold front moving thru South Australia at the moment will be the last for the season, you should be able to commence you work in early spring on this tree, so about now, give or take a week or two.
Difficult to tell from just the one photo, but would it be possible to hard wire those elongated branches down more to the horizontal to begin a canopy and have one of the new advantageous shoots to develop a new crown, seems a shame to cut all of that useable branching and foliage just to start again.
A bigger pot for the short term (12-18 mths) in a good mix and this tree will boom.
Good luck, keep us posted regardless of what you do,
Thanks
Watty

[treeman]

Once again...You have to cut! What is it will folks not wanting to cut??

[gin_boon]

Thanks for the advice. I just tried bending the branches down but can only get them to 45 degrees but may be able to get them lower when warmer? Would i u
se weights or wire?


Some closer pics i





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[Matt S]

Hi Gin_Boon,

In Adelaide we generally wait until Summer before root pruning or trunk chops on Figs so you are right to wait. The time spent in the tropics allowed those wonderful aerial roots to form which it would struggle to do in our dry climate.
The branches might be more pliable in summer but always use wire. Weights don't give you the control you need and usually result in soft arcs with no sideways movement, whereas wire allows you to add interesting bends in all directions.
I'd be significantly reducing the height of the trunk down to the aerial roots, although you might not want to do it in one go, as benjamina's don't bud from old wood like other figs do.

Good luck!

Matt.

[Rory]

Once again...You have to cut! What is it will folks not wanting to cut??

There is possibly a link between years of experience and the willingness to cut back growth. I think for a lot of people it is about 20% a year until it reaches the maximum.
For every year of practicing bonsai I got more comfortable knowing how much further I could cut back (depending on the species).

In the first year you might be hesitant and just trim by about 20%, wanting the tree to grow quicker and bigger.
Then after 3 years you may comfortably cut back to about 50%
Then after about 5 years you quite comfortably cut material back to the base.

I'm not being funny, I'm being serious.

[treeman]

Once again...You have to cut! What is it will folks not wanting to cut??

There is possibly a link between years of experience and the willingness to cut back growth. I think for a lot of people it is about 20% a year until it reaches the maximum.
For every year of practicing bonsai I got more comfortable knowing how much further I could cut back (depending on the species).

In the first year you might be hesitant and just trim by about 20%, wanting the tree to grow quicker and bigger.
Then after 3 years you may comfortably cut back to about 50%
Then after about 5 years you quite comfortably cut material back to the base.

I'm not being funny, I'm being serious.

You're probably right Rory. If you think of it logically though, it's simply a question of proportion. You consider the diameter of the trunk, and the height and you will soon come up with the conclusion that there is only so much straight line you can keep before needing some kind of movement for a particular subject. For a tree this size for example, once you reach the top of the trunk where it branches out, anything more than about say 7cm (at the most) of straight line is too much and will begin to look obvious and disagreeable to the eye. You cannot bend here so you cut of at that point. If you have a small tree of say 150mm in height, then anything more than 2cm of straight line would be too much. This is just fundamental.

[gin_boon]

I agree it needs to be cut. And i think at the same point as you. My husband teases me that it looks like a eucalypt fig!

So... wait until summer to chop the trunk and then try growing the branches for other material and root prune but bigger pot?

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[gin_boon]

2.5 years later and it has resprouted. Then i hastily trimmed the new growth and was going to use cut and grow. Anyway, I'm a bitn lost. Any advice appreciated...

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[kcpoole]

Nice trunk I think but a bit hard to see,
after 2.5 years, time for another recop all the new growth.

Once you can see it all then pick a nice trukline and well placed branches. let them go and wire them out and down.

Ken

[Harbs]

Now that you've got it to a shorter height, you can decide which branches you're going to use. If you want to use clip and grow, cut branches that you want to go sideways to create the canopy at a leaf node that faces outwards. This will force the new growth out sideways and you'll get a bit of width to it. Being down south, I'd recommend not cutting until summer or at least until it warms up to above 25 degrees-ish, that's when I do all my fig work (Newcastle). Make sure any branches cut still have strong leaves on them, 2-3 minimum, just because Benjamina loves to die-back.

Depending on your vision, you could have just one canopy, of have a few pads. If you wanted just one canopy, cut all branches down to a similar height and allow for a few cms to grow upwards, so cut a bit lower than your desired height. If you want pads, then you can select a few stronger shoots and have each of them create their own canopy.

Don't forget that at some point soon it might like a repot, and feed it heavily for lots of growth.

With a little work it'll look awesome, lots of potential. Good luck!