Sydney Tim's - Ficus benjamina #1

[TimIAm]

This tree started as an air layer around January 2023. One side rotted out after the layer was removed and has given me a challenge in trying to develop something interesting rather than throwing the tree in the composter.

March 2023
How it looked about 3 months after the removal of the layer, showing complete dieback down one side:

ben22.jpg

April 2024
1 year after. I used 2-part epoxy to seal off the rot from further damage. Looking messy, but still growing happily.

ben3.jpg

Nov 2024

IMG_6054.jpg

Improved the planting angle and did a bit more carving at the base to open it up further to make the base look wider. Branches are starting to get thicker and there has been some natural leaf size reduction.

Structure is coming into place, but getting the angle of the side branches to be in harmony is tricky.

Today, most branches had at least 5 buds ready to pop, so I removed the very end terminal buds to continue to force growth internally.

As I develop foliage on individual branches, I hope to tidy up the design further and create more defined spaces. You can see the progress of this already since the last update. I need to aim for strong growth on each branch so I can bring the structure of each "pad" under control and create a more standardised look over the tree.

Loose style looks nice and natural, but currently it's still just looking messy.

In the future it is also possible that the lower 2 branches get removed. I originally kept them for the sake of the health of the tree.