10 Little Samurai's- PJ figs

[Mitchell]

Here's number 4 twelve months later. In the before shot there is no top foliage at all and the branching was sparse as well.

I am happy will the leaf reduction, shown is a standard PJ leaf for size.

[lennard]

It looks a lot like the example you posted from nature.

Nice leaf reduction too.

Lennard

[Mitchell]

Thanks Lennard, sorry didn't check the thread again after posting.

I was happy to establish branches and leaves let alone getting reduction in the first season. That's ground growing for you though, I'd just walk past each day and literally rip handfuls of leaves and small branchlets off by hand.
At one point when it was looking particularly bushy, I had the whipper snipper out and gave the new growth the buzz. I call it "Aggressive defoliation", combined with heavy feeding through the growing season a continuous defoliation process is achievable. I find a continuous defoliation as apposed to a total, keeps the ball rolling and there is no halt to growth which is sometimes seen when removing all foliage. Less chance of killing it also, I only use this method on figs though.

[lennard]

I was happy to establish branches and leaves let alone getting reduction in the first season. That's ground growing for you though, .

Most of my prebonsai is planted in plastic basins with a lot of holes. I place the basins on the soil for the roots to escape in the ground - this works well for me to get fast growth on my trees.

I have a plastic greenhouse and last winter I placed the Ficus in there to grow on - big mistake! Because of the sun/heat in summer the temperature went up to 48 degrees Celsius in summer and I had to place shadecloth over the greenhouse. The Ficus sulk(not growing much) in the high shade!

In February I moved the trees which did not had escaped roots into the sun against a warm wall - i got more growth the last two months than the whole year in the greenhouse! In spring I will remove all my Ficus from the greenhouse and place the basins in full sun on the ground.

Ficus grow wild here and I should not have moved them into that protected eviroment in the first place.

Back to your cuttings. Did you notice any vertical bark dieback on some of your cuttings?

Lennard