Ficus rubiginosa shohin or nah?

[Max Jenkem]

Hi all,

I've been on and off "working" on this tree for the past decade or so but hadn't done anything other than sporadic pruning for a few seasons now and decided it needed a repot and cut back today. Had always planned on it being a shohin size but am open to ideas as to what you'd do with this specimen. My current plan is to try and get some pads on the three lower branches and then let an apex roll in over the top, what do you reckon?
Before

20210928_082131.jpg

After

20210928_142149.jpg

Sorry I don't have any older photos on my phone, they're all on an external HD.

[dansai]

Nice chunky little fig you have there Max.

If it were mine I wouldn't have taken all the branches off the top section, but rather spread a few out to make a canopy from multiple branches. Figs generally have large rounded canopies and no central leader as such. You should get plenty of new shoots up there, hopefully from different spots on the trunk and start the process. Ive included a photo of one of mine to illustrate what I mean. This is only its second growing season after a hard cut back so I'm hoping to thicken the branches and will cut back hard and build out from there.

Bonsai Bus stock - 1 (1).jpeg

[shibui]

Those are both nice chunky little trunks.
No scale in either photo so it is hard to get a full understanding of how big either is. Some of us add a 'standard scale device' (stubby or AA battery) before taking the photo as most people can visualise both those. Tape measure or hands can also be used for scale.

I'm guessing the new orchid pot is 20 cm diameter which must put the height at close to 20 cm too. I think it may be hard to develop a full canopy and still keep overall height under 20 cm to meet shohin size limit however a better tree is more important than rigid height rules.

You have not added a location Max. It is probably warm enough in most places in Aus to get a good response to pruning ficus now but some bonsai techniques are very time/location specific so you'll get much better advice if you update your personal profile to include a general area.

Your trim is pretty much what I would have done on the tree. Still a few long, thin shoots but they can be cut when the others have grown back. The challenge now will be to keep new shoots trimmed to get better ramification.
I would not be aiming at dense, flat pads on branches for ficus. I don't think that's how they grow naturally. All the older ficus I see have rounded, umbrella canopies rather than flat branch planes. You can please yourself with your trees but I always try to remember some wise words 'Try to make your bonsai look like trees rather than making your trees look like bonsai'

[Rory]

however a better tree is more important than rigid height rules.

I would not be aiming at dense, flat pads on branches for ficus. I don't think that's how they grow naturally. All the older ficus I see have rounded, umbrella canopies rather than flat branch planes. You can please yourself with your trees but I always try to remember some wise words 'Try to make your bonsai look like trees rather than making your trees look like bonsai'

Shibui is spot on.

Look closely at the primary branches on this fig.
Don't style your fig by looking at other ficus bonsai.

Fig structure bonsai.jpg

[tgooboon]

Max,

Tree is looking great. thanks for posting

I agree with the others on avoiding the flat branching as it doesn't look like a natural fig form. Pretty easy to let some branches go up and out on an angle and it will surely send up lots more branches.

I personally prefer a wider, more ramified fig, that has many multiple branching trunk lines.

For what it's worth I think that Port Jackson fig has a tendency for larger leaves, so I am leaning towards a bit larger tree for my own rather than struggling with leaf reduction for a shohin size.

Great to see an update of what it looks like in the future.

[Max Jenkem]

Thanks for the feedback, yes you're right it's ~250mm at the moment. Didn't want to cut back beyond the last leaf on a few of those thinner branches just to keep them active for back-budding. Will definitely shorten throughout the summer. I've been using Leong's ficus book as a visual reference which is where my thought of padding came from. I'll probably end up opting for what you guys have suggested though, do you think this 250mm training pot is wide enough for that goal? The next pot size up I have is this large 700mm ceramic which is a bit unwieldy imo

[shibui]

Unlike many other species used for bonsai Ficus grow and thicken really well in relatively small containers. Maybe that comes from their origins growing on other trees and rock faces but it makes them great for us to develop as bonsai.
That pot has plenty of space to enable good growth.
Ficus respond really well to fertilizer. I don't think it is possible to overfeed a Ficus and yours should grow and develop better with plenty of fert during the growing season.