Weeping Fig Re-style

[Tony Bebb]

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My first post on Ausbonsai
I had this fig to re-style recently in Townsville and thought it required something different. The left and back branches were seperated from the trunk leaving them connected by the airial roots.

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The root connecting the left branch was bent around and behind the trunk and the back branch was lowered to change their positions. That's the owner on the left. Bloody tree is nearly bigger than she i.s

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The remaing branches were lowered and/or wired to improve the structure and the foliage was trimmed to refine the shape. It took a lot of work and effort but it was a very exciting challenge and I am happy with the results so far. The final stages will be completed in about a year with regular foliage pruning to maintain and improve the shape.

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[nealweb]

Welcome! Great job, a huge improvement and now a very nice tree

[Jerry Meislik]

Nicely done. Love the new style.
Jerry

[Pup]

Nice to have you here Tony. Your expertise will nice for our members. I see Skippy is still getting plenty of Gigs around the place. Are you going to make it to Fremantle next year?

We hope you and yours are well. Cheers Pup

Ps you will know me by another name. You were invited to our place on your last visit.

[Tony Bebb]

Thanks pup. I know who you are. Love to be in freeo next year, just gotta make it fit the budget.

[gollum]

looks good

thanks for showing the pics

[Steven]

G'day Tony and welcome to AusBonsai!

This sure is a cool tree that must have given you a great deal of satisfaction to restyle.

Very interesting to see the way you maneuvered the left hand branch into position. I had to look twice to follow your technique.

I really like the new styling and look forwards to seeing it develop further. Will you be doing the next stage of work you mentioned or will you leave it to the owner?

Thanks for sharing your adventure!

Regards,
Steven

[Tony Bebb]

G'day Tony and welcome to AusBonsai!

This sure is a cool tree that must have given you a great deal of satisfaction to restyle.

Very interesting to see the way you maneuvered the left hand branch into position. I had to look twice to follow your technique.

I really like the new styling and look forwards to seeing it develop further. Will you be doing the next stage of work you mentioned or will you leave it to the owner?

Thanks for sharing your adventure!

Regards,
Steven

Hi Steven

I did have fun doing it and was excited to start once I came up with the plan. I hope to be up in Townsville next year to finish the job and would like to acquire the tree.

I have plenty more photos that show the process, but didn't want to get too carried away on my first attempt at a post.

Thanks to you and all for your positive comments

Best Regards
Tony

[Glenda]

Hi Tony,

Was that Norma's tree? I haven't met her but have heard you were doing workshops at her place. The restyle looks great. Nice to see you here on Ausbonsai.

Glenda
(We met at your workshop in Mackay)

[hugh grant]

Great work on this tree Tony, a diffinete improvement.

Hugh

[Loretta]

Hi Tony

First of all welcome to Ausbonsai, I thought you'd never get here!!!!
I think this tree was so complex and interesting that the few pics you posted don't do justice to the work and muscle you put into it. I really think it needs a running commentary for everyone to appreciate it. Well that's my opinion only Tony, so enough from bossy boots...tell me to mind my own business. Aside from that I hope you are well and we're looking forward to your next visit...by the way...the raft you helped me with is doing extremely well
cheers Loretta

[Tony Bebb]

Hi Loretta

Thanks for the comments. It sure did involve a bit of muscle and sweat. I might add some more pics later.
Glad to hear the raft is doing well.

Tony

[Tony Bebb]

Hi Tony,

Was that Norma's tree? I haven't met her but have heard you were doing workshops at her place. The restyle looks great. Nice to see you here on Ausbonsai.

Glenda
(We met at your workshop in Mackay)

Hi Glenda

Yes it is Norma's tree. Hopefully it will be mine one day if I can talk her into it.

Sorry to hear about the azalea's. Too early i'd reckon. Make it up to you next time.

Tony

[Tony Bebb]

Hi All

I was back in Townsville on the 8th/9th May and got to do some more work on this tree and wanted to share the update. The first series of photos adds to the initial styling and shows what was done with the 'main branch'. I was encouraged to show these to better explain what happened in the first place.

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So after only 7 months it has put out plenty of growth.

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The few branches that were properly wired had the wire removed due to the fast growth and some started to grow back up. I decided to remove most of the tie wires and the strapping on the root to see how it fared. To my surprise the root stayed in place, due mostly I would say because the root is a meld of smaller ones and they all set individually.

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I gave the main branch a bit more of a twist to bring the front of it down and put a tie wire on it to hold in place, and refined the lowest branch on the right.

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Next was to refine the top branches and the apex to fill it out more and shorten it a bit to give it more spread.

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Last bot not least was to refine the cuts to give some taper and remove the lumps left from where the branches were cut from the trunk. I used the mini arbortech for this and then cut the edges with a sharp knife before adding cut paste to the edge.

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The final front was rotated a bit to the right to give a better view of the trunk and add more depth to the tree. The good news is the tree will now be mine and it will be coming to my backyard soon.

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[Tony Bebb]

The next phase in the development of this tree will be to work on the roots and tidy them up to give more balance. When I get it to my place.