ficus rubiginosa 'little ruby' progression

[hugh grant]

hey people
did some major work on a ficus rubiginosa 'little ruby' last sunday. it turned out really well to me
In july 2008 i got a piece of pipe about 30cm long and laced end up in a large plastic pot full of soil. Took the tree out of the pot and washed the roots clean of dirt then stretched them out a placed them inside the plastic pipe and buried the ends of the roots in the soil at the bottom of the pipe that it was sitting in. The rest of the pipe was backfilled with sand to the top where the tree came out the top. Let it grow for a while. I was trying to create an exposed root style
In December that year it was taken out of the pot and the plastic pipe to find that the roots hadn’t grown enough to create the exposed roots. I then put the tree back into the pot and filled it up with extra soil and let it grow normally for a a year untill last week

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took it out of the pot and spent an hour washing all the soil out from the roots. the exposed roots i had intended to expose had grown massivelly. i then cut the roots bellow the 'exposed' par to flatten it but left enough to survive in and potted it up into the same pot except i cut it in half
then i got to work on it and defoliated, taking a while. got to work chopping, shortened a few branches and chopped off a few. then got to wiring and wired most of the trees branches. all the branches were set in place and a few more clips to shorten some branches.

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these branches are like this because im trying to bend the front one down lower and i had to keep the back branch that is opposit so that the tree wouldnt be pulled out of the pot from the tension so i had to pull it down as well to counter balance, but once that branch is in place and shortened considerably the back one will be removed and the smaller one to the left of it will take its place as the major back branch.

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it is still to progress but im very happy with it.
what do ya think feel free to comment on the tree

Hugh

any virts that you think could look like its future or extra ideas are welcome too

[Jamie]

i think you are headed down the right track for what you want, it will be interesting to see the exposed roots when you unravel them

[hugh grant]

Thanks Jamie I think I have on this one, I'm very happy with it.
I will unravel the roots at a later date and I'll posta pic up when this happens, but untill then you'll all just have to wait

Hugh

[dayne]

this tree looks like its on the way to something grate heres a couple of changes id make if it where mine but either way looks good

[anttal63]

Good effort Hugh!!! I am sure you have learnt lots from this excercise. For me the tree is to busy for its height, simplifying it as dayne has improves it. Personally i would make a shorter tree. It is however hard to judge with its roots covered up. I look forward to seeing it all.

[hugh grant]

Thanks for your input guys. And thanks for that visual dayne of your thoughts, so are saying from what I see when I look at the pic, to get rid of the front branch that bars with the back one and leave the back one?
You could be right ant about the busyness o the tree especially onthe top but I'll see how it looks when the foliage grows back and then I'll take it from there. And it's height I'm not awfully worried about right now but I might shorten it a late date I I see I needed.
Thanks guys

Hugh

[DustyRusty]

Hugh, would love to see some updates of this puppy!

[hugh grant]

Hugh, would love to see some updates of this puppy!

Hey Bud
thanks for finding this thread! didnt even realise i had done one on this tree in its earlier stage, which is great because i thought i had lost these pictures when my computer died
theres another thread here viewtopic.php?f=104&t=14154 where ive done some more recent work on the tree.

Hugh