AusBonsai

I went online recently to buy a ficus microcarpa retusa (banyan fig?)

.. ended up buying 3

.. eager as, i drove all the way next morning to the other side of town just over n hour away to pick up the little fellows

and ended up walking out with 7 scratch scratch how did that happened

My idea when i took them home after i saw some inspiration was to bound them together so that they will fuse.

They are decent sized. I was told that i f i prune everything back to basically stubbs, this will fatten the trunks..

.. is this true ??

Hmmm sounds a bit contradictory to me. Usually you let trees grow out to thicken, not prune them back. So if I were you I'd just let them grow instead.

From what I've read on the forums (hopefully someone far more knowledgeable than myself can expand on it) what you're talking about is 3 different techniques. You grow out to thicken then/or cut back to increase taper. As for fusing them together, you'll have to find one of the more experienced members to explain that one to you.

As for walking out with 7, sounds like the bonsai bug has bitten hard. Better start building bonsai stands

Good luck

Let us have a picture of the figs in bondage...sounds interesting you should get lots of advice.

Cheers

Hi mate

7 I thought I had it bad with three If you want to thicken them up i would plant them individually in plastic pots and do not take anything of the top as the more growth you have on top the thicker the tree will become to compensate for the growth. Hope this helps.

Regards Mick

To fatten there are 3 things you need - rooms for roots, food and a sacrifice branch down low. If you have all 3 it will fatten the trunk very quickly.

Bougy Fan wrote:To fatten there are 3 things you need - rooms for roots, food and a sacrifice branch down low. If you have all 3 it will fatten the trunk very quickly.

You forgot the 4th Tony. Heat figs do not grow well when it is cold, unless you have them in a hot house, then it is not cold. Melbourne at the moment is cold.

Pup cheers

I will post photos tonite if I can so you can have a sneaky peak at my projects..

Regarding fatten the trunks, thank you for all the input.

Coming back to what "the guy" had said, he explained that by removing the branches it

encourages all the energy to be stored in the trunk which then fattens it ?

Question is which method will be fastest to fatten up these trunks?

Have you checked this out??


viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6717&start=135&hilit=dynamic+figs

cheers

JAS

You forgot the 4th Tony. Heat figs do not grow well when it is cold, unless you have them in a hot house, then it is not cold. Melbourne at the moment is cold.

Absolutely correct Pup I keep forgetting that not everyone lives up here in God's country

Seriously if you want huge amounts of growth you need all 4 of those - 5 if you include a free draining mix which you should have anyway

Bougy Fan wrote:

You forgot the 4th Tony. Heat figs do not grow well when it is cold, unless you have them in a hot house, then it is not cold. Melbourne at the moment is cold.

Absolutely correct Pup I keep forgetting that not everyone lives up here in God's country

Seriously if you want huge amounts of growth you need all 4 of those - 5 if you include a free draining mix which you should have anyway

Last time I was in QLD it rained from the time I got there and stopped when I was getting on the plane home. Even the fire in the sky got swamped.

So I am waiting for an invite to check out all these claims of how good and Sunny it is

Pup wrote:
Last time I was in QLD it rained from the time I got there and stopped when I was getting on the plane home. Even the fire in the sky got swamped.

So I am waiting for an invite to check out all these claims of how good and Sunny it is

Hey Pup,

I hereby formally invite you to Queensland.

Where is Queensland by the way?

Cheers

Andrew

PS: Now you have no excuses!

Andrew Legg wrote:
Hey Pup,

I hereby formally invite you to Queensland.

Where is Queensland by the way?

Cheers

Andrew

PS: Now you have no excuses!

Now that is funny

Seriously specimen. 7. Are you an addict I love it

If you have bound them together already, just let everything grow free for now. Pruning them now will seriously slow them down. The only reason you should need to prune anything for a while is just to control the rate of growth of the individual trees so they get thickness variation. You will want the central ones to be thickest ideally. When the warm weather comes, feed them well with a surface coat of DL or whatever you use, and liquid feed as well. That'll kick them along.

Look forward to the pics

Tony

by The Specimen » Yesterday, 11:39 am

I will post photos tonite if I can so you can have a sneaky peak at my projects..

Regarding fatten the trunks, thank you for all the input.

Coming back to what "the guy" had said, he explained that by removing the branches it

encourages all the energy to be stored in the trunk which then fattens it ?

Question is which method will be fastest to fatten up these trunks?

I have not heard this before. Shortening a tree makes the remaining bit LOOK fatter but probably not ACTUALLY thicker. One possibility is that cutting back a tall, single stem will produce lots of new shoots which can then help to thicken the remaining trunk (and add taper as some will be lower on the trunk?) As far as I know Tony's ideas are the best way to increase thickness - plenty of room, feed and water. Cutting back regularly will add taper to the equation.
re binding together. My experience is figs fuse very easily and do not need to be held as tightly together as most other species. One Melb grower quoted as saying that you only need to put 2 figs in the same room and they will fuse together!

I know this is a relativly old post but just wandering about the fusing... would you need to shave some of the bark off were you want the tree's to fuse or just leave them intact? I mean just expose the cambium layer or anything?
Still waiting on these pictures though...
Thanks