Suggestions for this Fig

[Gareth]

Hi guys,

Have had this fig for about 5 years, have taken about 5 or 6 pups off it, and trimmed it every year, and now it time i think for some serious shaping and consideration for its future.

Any suggestions? i was considering air layering it about halfway up above the third branch and using the third branch for continuing on the vertical part of the tree.

Looking for some advice.

Gareth

[Handy Mick]

Mate, i would just put this one in the ground and let it go for another year.

[Jamie]

hi mate

have you root pruned this tree at all? how big was it when you got it? my suggestions would be to get it in a grow box, get some wire on it and add movement then really let it grow strong with lots of water, sunshine and ferts this will then give you some good options to work on the tree in another couple of years!

jamie

[roka]

Hey Jamie you say lots of water but when i over water mine even a tad bit more, the leaves go yellow.wtf im down in vic has that got something to do with it?

[Gareth]

yes i have root pruned it, a few times over the last 5 years.

What should i be aiming for here, a thicker trunk, more limbs to make some choices from?

Thew problem is i don't have a lot of room to plant in the ground, and i plan on moving soon so i don't want to be planting and then digging it up out of the ground in 6 months time.

Can i just find a large box or a really large pot and fertilize the bejeezus out of it?

what direction should i be taking in regards to fertilizing and what should i be doing regarding wiring?

Gareth

[Jamie]

Hey Jamie you say lots of water but when i over water mine even a tad bit more, the leaves go yellow.wtf im down in vic has that got something to do with it?

hi mate, being cooler down during the winter i would slow down with the watering to only when necessary, in summer though you should have to water at least once a day depending on your mix, it should be sucking water up like nothing in summer. what medium is it in, is it free draining? has it been repotted as of late? have you used a slow release called nitrophoska? (i bought some as it was cheap and it broke down very quickly and i had yellowing leaves just dying off and lost a whole apex because of it) how much do you feed and what do you feed it? if you want to get some pics of it, start a new thread and we will have a look, other wise feel free to pm me some pics and i will let you know my thoughts and see if i can help.

i get the feeling it would be the medium it is in is getting to wet and the tree cant take all the water in and could be causing probs with the root system.

yes i have root pruned it, a few times over the last 5 years.

What should i be aiming for here, a thicker trunk, more limbs to make some choices from?

Thew problem is i don't have a lot of room to plant in the ground, and i plan on moving soon so i don't want to be planting and then digging it up out of the ground in 6 months time.

Can i just find a large box or a really large pot and fertilize the bejeezus out of it?

what direction should i be taking in regards to fertilizing and what should i be doing regarding wiring?

Gareth

hi mate yes a grow box would definately be the go, that will give it room to strech its roots and it will need to be left unhindered to grow, if you can get a bud to shoot low on the trunk keep it as this will give you a sacrifice branch that will pump energy into the lower trunk and help speed the process of thickening the tree up a bit.
in the grow box you can feed very generously with dynamic lifter it can pong a little for the first couple of days after that its no prob. replace that as needed. if you can get your hands on diatomite or similar get it into that, it will help develop a fine feeder root system and that in turns helps a lot to, leaving the tree un hindered to grow for a period of time will extend the branches that are on it already, once they get long chop back hard to a low branch to start a new leader, this in turn done in mid to late spring will give the tree a plethora of new buds, this will give you lots more branching options, allow it to grow on for a year or two and this will thicken your trunk. post some progression shots of it in summer and we can go from there



jamie

[Gareth]

Hi Guys,

\Some backround on the tree,

I habve potted it in a normal potting mix with a mix of diatomite (about 20%) and potting mix.

I mix some zeolite powder together with some seaweed fertilizer to act as slow release fertilizer.

It has been repotted maybe 3-4 months ago, i did get some yellowing of the leaves right after i repotted, and got this yellowing (and actually lost a fig, only a small one though, a seeding if anything) straight after re-potting but i assumed this was from shock and pruning so close to winter.

From then on the only ferts i give to most, if not all of my plants are seaweed fertilizer (seasol), and additional Potash in the warmer months.

Is there another fertilizer i should be using, a lot of my plants are younger plants that i seem to be struggling to get good growth on.

As i said i cant really plant in the ground at the moment, so would an extremely large pot suffice with plenty of room to grow, or does the plant need to be unhindered in its growth and left to its own devices.

Gareth

[Bonbon]

Long way to go for the trunk to get to an acceptable size. 5 years may be, better put in the ground too.

While the trunk is still like a whip, wire it and create some curves, movement. Decide which branch to stay and cut off the unwanted ones to concentrate the growth on useful spots. good luck!

[Mitchell]

You have a few options here. I would be inclined to give it a chop down, put it in a grow box and feed it like crazy. I think chopping like the virt, would be a good option. Will give you a bit of taper and some nice movement.

[Gareth]

I could air layer it off there could i not, then chop it off, get two trees and stick them both in the ground?

[Mitchell]

I could air layer it off there could i not, then chop it off, get two trees and stick them both in the ground?

Yes air-layering is an option. Cuttings that I snip off my figs, I shove straight back in the same container as the plant. I get about 70% strike rate, even without rooting hormone. I also keep a large container of water crystals, rooting hormone and mild ferts sitting in the corner of my bonsai area. Any excess cuttings get dunked in the solution and left there. When they produce roots they are planted out.

[Jamie]

chopping it now for taper isnt going to do anything for this tree, you need to grow it out to a girth close to where you want for the overall finished tree!!!
if you want a 2 inch trunk(eg.) with taper then chopping it now is only going to slow the girth grow rate down.

to air layer something like that will be good for practice but with a fig that size i would just cut it, hormone it and stick it in some medium it should strike no problems!!

get it in a grow box and let it grow before you chop it for taper. lots of people will chop a trunk way to early and never get what they are after exactly.

Ken (kcpoole) has some great advice and that is to buy 2 trees when you start, one to put in a box or ground and grow it on and the other to work on and put it in a pot, in 5 years time there will be a lot of difference and you will be most likely be happy with the size of the grow on one

sorry if it seems like i am pushing something onto you but getting this advice of air layering on such a young tree doesnt help in the overall picture, sorry.

jamie

[Mitchell]

Jamie is probably right. I was just thinking, since it has got this leggy already, putting it in the ground is only going to cause it to continue to grow up. I think it needs to go in the ground, but a lot of energy is going into those branches. I generally cut my figs back whilst in a box and feed heavily encouraging more growth down low to get the girth.

[Gareth]

Hi Jamie,

I appreciate your honestly and pushing the point, after all that is why i posted it on the forum, to get the BEST advice about the future for this tree.

Ok so a large grow box to gorw a bigger girth on the tree is what is needed, i will do that.

Now onto the next question, can i do this now? On the Mid north coast of NSw it is quite wet this time of year, would this be a problem?

Im guessing prepare the area, plant it out, only tease the roots out slightly if any (considering it has only been re-potted about 2 months ago i wouldnt think this would be nessecary) and fertilize it up?

1. what soil mix should i use
2. what area should i put it in, im guessing a 70% or more shaded area throughout the day is better?
3. should i be fertilizeing now with chicken manure or something like that?
4. would anyone suggest triming it now?
5. there are some previous posts about wiring it to introduce some shape to the tree, should i do this now?

After i get some good growth on the tree and get to 50mm girth or more then ill air layer it. and go from there.

I guess once i get the above sorted i can post progression photoes and get more as to shaping, triming, defoliateing etc.

Gareth

[Jamie]

hi mate

ok lets go over your questions hey

firstly yes you should be able to slip pot it into a grow box now, being that it was repotted recently i wouldnt stress about teasing the roots as they will probably be reasonably loose anyways. you could feed with a mild fert at a lower than reccomended rate at this point. depending on how the root system looks, take a pic and put it up when you do it, if the roots are strong enough to take fert then that will be fine.

the mix i use for figs is usually 100% diatomite, but have some mixed with an organic (just a commercial bonsai mix usually) at about 80% diat. 20% org.

morning sun will be good for it, if you can get it sun upto 12 ish then part shade or shade for the rest of the day will be good for the first few weeks then you can introduce it into full sun when it has started to push growth well. spring isnt far off so when that comes about i would be happy to put it in full sun by then it should of established in the grow box alright.

being that it is going into a grow box, the playing around will stress the tree a little, but its a fig, they usually can take it, i would be prepared to put a small amount of dynamic lifter on the soil and then building it up every few weeks, my fig in grow boxes have about 2 inches or more of DL on the top of the soil BUT i built that up over a period of time, scrape off any that starts to cake up hard or goes sludgy as this will make watering difficult.

i would be happy to chop back the branches by half or so to encourage back budding down the branch and to the trunk, i would do this now and be prepared to see what happens come spring, i would think that it would push new growth on the trunk and allow you to choose sacrificial branching low on the trunk to help thicken the base.

wiring the trunk now is definately a good idea, exagerate the movement more so now as when it thickens the curves will smooth off a lot and it will be more subtle. also will be harder to get movement into a bigger trunk later, we can go into taper development on this one later


hope this has helped

jamie