AusBonsai

Sorry if this is a silly question but...
How come you don't see a lot of jin or shari fig bonsai?

Cheers
Julian

it normally rots away quickly in the wild forming a hollow in the trunk or grows over as fig grow fast

No such thing as a silly question. Jin and Shari is traditionally used on Conifers pines, Juniper Larch etc and not commonally used on deciduous or semi deciduous. It is becoming a bit more embraced on these species now though.

Further to the answers above, think of these trees in the wild. You will see Jin and Shari on pines and junipers as they have hard wood and the dead wood therefore remains on the tree for a long time. With bonsai, we try to capture a little slice of nature in miniature, so we try to stick to natural traits of each species. Of course there are those of us who choose to grow bonsai more as an artistic expression of abstraction, and in these cases the boundaries and interpretation are different. So in my opinion, how you choose to grow and style your trees is more a matter of personal preference than rules and regulations, and you must do what you feel works for you. There are however those who would say that extreme changes from "standard bonsai practices" means that your trees are not bonsai, and there is merit to their argument as well. At the end of the day, if you want to learn traditional bonsai according to the strict definition thereof, then there are more rigid rules/practices/styles etc to learn and follow, and they are there for good reason, but if you just fancy artistic expression through growing small trees in pots, then the world is your oyster!

Think of the trees natural environment, a pine/juniper is on a mountain zero humidity, pounded by wind. A fig is in a rainforest with lots of humidity. Conifer wood hardens and ficus wood rots.

Iv tried with figs but the jin ends up a stump with no character.

Thank you it's making a lot more sense. The reason I am asking this is because I have a benji fig that has a large amount of scaring on both it's main trunks with large sections of wood exposed. One covers about 250mm and the other trunk has a few smaller ones. They look as though they are quite old and are quite interesting. Just not sure where I should go with this one!

patina wrote:Thank you it's making a lot more sense. The reason I am asking this is because I have a benji fig that has a large amount of scaring on both it's main trunks with large sections of wood exposed. One covers about 250mm and the other trunk has a few smaller ones. They look as though they are quite old and are quite interesting. Just not sure where I should go with this one!

If you could post a few pictures of your tree members here we will be able to help you an give some ideas on what you could do with your tree

Olivecrazy wrote:
If you could post a few pictures of your tree members here we will be able to help you an give some ideas on what you could do with your tree

Pics would be good

Here are some pics...
Not sentimentally attached but I think this could have some potential.

Hi you might wanna air layer it above that branch on the right hand trunk, air layer both trunks in spring.

The results could be as good as this: viewtopic.php?f=104&t=11183

Hope this helps.

I have just looked at the above pictures and it has reminded me to ask the question how do you rotate the pictures

I dont think you can once they have been up loaded.

Someone did some for me a few months ago so it must be able to be done, but I am like reddoggy a bit of a dill on computers.