AusBonsai

Here is a few pic's of my favourite fig every year around this time it starts to grow heaps of aerial roots.

Its fantastic to see mother nature a work!

Look closely

Shannon,

Thats a very nice fig indeed mate. I love the full canopy and shallow pot. Do you let the aerials grow only for one year so they dont get too thick and thicken branches in wrong spots??

awesome shannon so do you do anything to induce the aireal roots or do you just let it go and it produces them all by itself?


jamie

A lovely looking ficus Shannon! Your close up shot showing all the arial roots looks so natural - just like its bigger cousins (except for the wire )
Do you have any shots of it nude to share with us? What's the species and history mate?

Regards,
Steven

Cheers guys,
Noah- usually trim the aerial roots ant the end of summer they get a little out of control if not keep in check and i do get runaway branches sometimes.

Jamie- the canopy helps with the humidity levels mate and the aerials love that humidity mate.

Steven-its a Queensland small leaf fig mate, i bought as a much smaller tree no branches (ground grown stock) around 12-13 years ago in Bundy paid about $40 for it . Since then its been in and out of the ground, pots and shows here's a few pic's (earliest shot first- around 2002 - show in Brisbane 2005 - no leaf 2008 - AABC show 2009) have earlier shots but not in digital format yet .

Congratulatinos Shannon - a fantastic tree and even better progression / development
Regards
Steve

very impressive tree man i love it.

Great work shannon ,I am impressed by the canopy mate ,can you talk us through the development of it ? I have a nice base which is starting to show potential and would like to get it right . Letting the aerials go for awhile then removing them appeared to help give strength to the main trunks ,obviously more oppurtunity for nutrient uptake . Do you believe that it is important to do those steps ? and if so ,how does it affect what is going on beneath the soil?

yeah this is a really great example of a fig, i had the pleasure of seeing it for myself the other day, i went to meet shannon and have a look at some of his trees and he has some really impressive stuffl!! he's a top bloke and really knows his bonsai, good on ya mate!! look forward to joining the society and doing some work with ya

awesome fig, well done

Absolutely superb fig Shannon- should be in the header,
Ash

One of the best Fig I have ever seen. The aeriel roots are magic and makes it stands out.
Fig is my favourite too. We aussie should be able to achieve much more as our weather favors fig tree.
This is an inspiring example............thanks

stop removing the roots that grasp the trunk. Allow them to fuse to the trunk.

Cheers for the compliments guys!!!
Hey Tony aka Bundyfisher, it sounds silly but its easier style a tree rather than explain how to style if you know what I mean (Will give it a go)

I grew a primary branch structure first then used mostly the clip and grow method to refine the canopy when i was happy with an area i contained it by pinching the new growth back regularly this encourages growth in other areas. This all won't happen quickly so you need plenty of patients.

Asus......look closer and you will see a lot of fused roots on the trunk but...... this sound easy in books and on the net but try it in real life and you will soon discover that some aerial roots are very dominate and will fatten up quickly and others won't at all, this can leave the base looking very unsightly as well as the branch that it is feeding to get reverse taper. You can't trim aerial roots as easy as foliage and are hard to slow down once they are mixed up with the regular root system.

As soon as i see a rouge aerial root off it comes

Shannon wrote: Asus......look closer and you will see a lot of fused roots on the trunk but...... this sound easy in books and on the net but try it in real life and you will soon discover that some aerial roots are very dominate and will fatten up quickly and others won't at all, this can leave the base looking very unsightly as well as the branch that it is feeding to get reverse taper. You can't trim aerial roots as easy as foliage and are hard to slow down once they are mixed up with the regular root system.

As soon as i see a rouge aerial root off it comes

Yeah, its the only thing you gotta focus and watch. Its how they get those gnarly looking trunks in Taiwan. The biggest worry and thing you need to watch is the strength of the top and branches. Those roots will feed the branches and once fused will start to supply the top of the tree.
I did have an article Cheng Cheng-Kung gave to me, but I think its on the other computer that's waiting to be fixed. You can see some of his tree's over at Art Of Bonsai, or I can post some more images from the Taiwanese bonsai creators meet.