Pomegranate Air Layer

Back in the spring of 2019, I decided to start a few air-layer attempts on Japanese maple, Crepe Myrtle, Pomegranate and a Privet. This is not my first attempt - I tried a couple of years ago (on a ficus?) and gave up when it failed, since I didn't see the point. Now I do. It's an awesome short-cut to get a thick trunk - the single most important thing for a bonsai!

The air-layering technique consists of scraping off a ring of the bark and cambium layers from a branch, wrapping the wound with wet moss, perhaps after apply some rooting hormone, and covering it with plastic sheets to keep it from drying out. The cambium will be tricked into developing roots at the upper edge of the ring, while the xylem/phloem inner layers keep the branch alive. After a few weeks, when there are enough roots, cut off the branch and plant it in soil to get a new tree. That is, if all goes to plan.

Out of the 5 attempts this time, I got 5 different results! One of the Japanese maple layers briefly rooted. But three and a half weeks later (I was out of town), the whole branch had died. This was part of a bigger branch which seemed to be dying off bit by bit... so may be it wasn't my fault. The other JM air layer (in a healthier branch on the same tree), simply calloused over - no sign of roots. It was bumpy sort of callous, which perhaps always accompanies rooting. I scraped off the callous and re-wrapped it in wet moss, to give it more time. The crepe-myrtle also closed the gap with no signs of rooting. But this callous was smooth, and looked less promising. The privet ignored my wound, and grew a couple of roots at a different spot! I cut it off and planted it in soil. Hope it pulls through.

The pomegranate was the best of the lot. The air-layer was started on 11th May 2019, and by mid August, there were clear signs of rooting along with bumpy callousing. I gave it a good spray of water and let it sit for couple more weeks.  Then on Labor Day, I cut it off and planted it in a pot. I couldn't resist the urge to peel off as much of the moss as possible to take a good look at the roots. Hope I didn't damage too may roots in the process.

Now the wait to see if it survives...

Ficus Benjamina "Phoenix"

Earlier this Spring (March 2019), I had what I now know with reasonable certainty, a wide spread spider-mite infestation among many of my potted plants, especially the ficuses. See this post for more gory details. Among the victims was one of the Ficus Benjamina cuttings that was a couple of years old. and not really targeted as a pre-bonsai, but a favorite nevertheless. Before realizing that it was a spider-mite problem, I was frantically searching for solutions, as the plants were declining fast.

This particular plant was declining faster than others - yellowing leaves that were wilting away...  I noticed that the water wasn't draining well. When I dug up the roots,  I was shocked to find a big tuber (or a "tumor" as I felt it was). Too bad, I didn't take any pictures. I guessed that the tuber in the root was probably a reaction to the poorly draining soil (is that how they develop all those ugly ginseng ficus "bonsai" with those hideous roots?). And so I replaced almost all the soil, with some coarse sand added in.

Spider-mites, plus a horrific root chop in April 2019

After a couple of weeks, in mid April 2019, while the drainage had definitely improved, the plant was still declining. Then in desperation, I decided to chop off the tuber. Unfortunately, in my haste, I cut off 90% of all roots. At that point, I knew I had killed the plant.








Keeping fingers crossed, I kept the plant indoors, kept it misted as much I could... but it dropped all leaves in a matter of days.

Not looking good!

By mid May 2019, it looked dead

A rebirth!

But, in another 10 days are so, some signs of life emerged! There was visible greening in one of the lower branches. And then in another branch.

By the second week of June it was beyond doubt that the plant was recovering... rather having a re-birth!

















June 23rd 2019

And now, it has leafed out well in some branches, while others are clearly dead. But interestingly it has also sprouted a number of what could probably be called "adventitious buds", something I thought Ficus B. never did. So, a few new things learned!

October 13, 2019 

Yes, there a some dead branches, but it has more than made up for them and greened out nicely all around. It's so gratifying to see this tree revive itself. 










December 8, 2019

For a while I thought I'd keep the dead branches around as a reminder of what this tree has been though. But they just looked messy, and I have this blog to remind myself - so cut them off.

And now that the tree is solidly alive again, it's time to mess around with it again ;) Trying a new fusion technique - got a rooted cutting (from another ficus b.) and set it on top of that long left branch and trained the roots down the trunk line. Wrapped the roots with wet cloth and plastic tape. The idea is to mimic a "strangler" - like these trees do in the wild. 

April 4th, 2020

The roots of the strangler have reached the soil and should be able to sustain it now. 

Added a wire to shape one of the branches.

Also, trying a thread grafting experiment. You can see it right above the wired branch. Clipped off an "eye poker" branch, and made a cutting out of it; drilled hole in the trunk, inserted the cutting and covered the bottom end with wet moss. Let's see if this works. 

If it does, it can be a game changer for my Ficus B. work. 

Ficus Benjamina Fusion

When I saw the world's largest tree named General Sherman Tree, in the Sequoia National Park in California, I thought to myself that it looked like at least two trees fused together.










Several other gigantic trees in that park were fused multiple trunks.











That reminded me of the potted ficus trees at home with fused trunks. And ironically, looking at that gigantic tree gave me the idea to try a ficus fusion bonsai! (Later I googled it and found that I wasn't the first one to think of that, of course!)

Since I have a regular supply of ficus benjamina cuttings from the several house plants we have, it wasn't too hard to get started. I started several cuttings in the Summer of 2018. Two were straight and woody with very few branches - these I thought will just provide the bulk for the trunk. Others were thin and more ramified.

In all I probably had 6 or 7 cuttings. In mid September 2018,  after all of them had rooted sufficiently, I bundled together with twist ties and string and planted them in a mix of mostly potting soil , along with some some lava rock, fine gravel and Napa oil dry thrown in (notice the classy yogurt container pot ;)

I know some folks do more elaborate stuff like using some special paper/cloth to wrap the trunks. I don't know if that's necessary. Time will tell...

Fast forward to May 2019, and... well, not much to get excited about. Still no sign of any fusion, though the cuttings are doing great. As part of the ficus trouble shooting experiments, I repotted this and got rid of all the lava rock, since that was one of my suspects (it likely was spider mites, as I detail in this post).








So the wait continues... the plants spend all the time outdoors now that the weather is great. 

Ficus Benjamina Bonsai from "Air Layer"

I had this lanky ficus almost 3 feet tall with no foliage below the top few inches of the uniform, straight trunk about a cm thick. So I thought, why not chop off the head and try to train it into a bonsai. I wasn't sure such a big "cutting" would root properly if I just chop it off and keep it in water, like I usually do for ficus b. cuttings. And I had always wanted to try an air layer anyway. So took a knife to the plant on April 15, 2018.

After scraping off the bark and cambium layers from about an inch of the trunk, covered it with wet moss and wrapped it up.












In two weeks, opened the wrap up and noticed a funny thing. It had rooted vigorously, but not from the scraped area, but from intact bark. Go figure!

May 3, 2018: Cut off the rooted head. In other species, one should probably wait until there are a lot more roots. But ficus is so easy to root and propagate, one can get away with this kind of impatience.
















May 12, 2018: the cutting is in water for further root development.

After a couple of weeks, it was moved to a training pot with a soil mix consisting of lava rock (filtered to be about 1/4"), coarse sand (filtered out from homedepot play sand) and Miraclegrow potting mix. I even managed to get it to develop some aerial roots from the lowest branch.




Mar 25, 2019: Six months of TLC (some branch pruning, indoor LED lighting over the winter, aerial root management) yielded a vigorous and well ramified pre-bonsai.


But then, things started to take a turn for the worse... In fact, for at least a few of months by this time, I had been noticing that several of my ficus b. plants weren't looking right. The leaves looked pale, dusty (but won't wash off), some leaves, especially in the variegated plants would curl up, etc.







I suspected it could be one of 3 things:

1. the lava rock in the soil
2. the excessive use of LED lighting
3. over fertilization

But I never suspected it could be pests until late. The current suspect is spider-mites. See my post on that.



The status as of May 9, 2019 is, in spite of frequent spraying (with rubbing alcohol, neem oil, insecticidal soap alternately), the plant doesn't show obvious recovery, though it's not deteriorating either. There is also probably some sun burn due to the plants being outdoors all the time now, including several hours of direct sun.

May 28, 2019: The spider-mite problem seems to be under control, finally!

Gave this guys a pot upgrade (Costco Kirkland Brand Laundry Detergent Can cut down and painted white - the perfect trainer pot!). Filled in with a mix of .5" lava rock, .25" gravel and MG potting mix. Did a bit of leaf pruning to get rid of sick and very large leaves (taking care to leave at least a bud at the end of the branch).

Hope this guy, christened "Twister", has a happy summer!!

Ficus Microcarpa

This blog entry will be a journal of the progression of my Ficus Microcarpa tree. 

I got this cutting from a fellow plant lover. 
She started the cutting in water in late October 2018. 

After a few weeks I transferred it to some potting mix, and it made steady progress. Here it is on 23 March 2019: 

March 30, 2019: Decided to try the "tile method" to develop surface roots. Used a piece of tae kwon do breaking board, sanded the edges and applied two coats of Welbond glue to laminate it. Placed the "tile" in the training pot over 90% of the soil, then spread the roots over it, and added a thin layer of soil on top. Secured the plant with some wires.

April 25, 2019: Did a bit of wiring to give the trunk some movement. 

November 2nd 2019: Look at it now, one year on from being a mere cutting! It's developing into a beautiful little tree. The past couple of months, it spent outside in great summer-fall weather. But now it's time to bring it inside, and continue to develop under artificial light. I was even able to clip a branch to make a new cutting - hopefully that branch will develop more ramification. If it does, a couple of other branches will also need clipping sometime soon. So I'll have a few new cuttings. Perhaps I can attempt a trunk fusion with those!

Variegated Ficus

Feb 2009

We got this beautiful variegated ficus clump some 10 years ago, and after doing so well, some years ago it had a devastating attack of scale. My heroic attempts to control the scale with alcohol, insecticidal soap, ear buds, etc. were in vain, and I just couldn't restore it to health. With a heavy heart I took the plant outdoors, and there it languished for probably two years, barely alive, but putting on a fight.

One of the cuttings: April 2019

Because I didn't want to completely lose the plant, I had made a couple of cuttings from the better branches and they have survived and are now thriving.

Original Clump: April 2019

About year and a half ago, I decided to rescue the original clump (whatever was left of it), and moved it to a shady spot, sprayed and debugged it, re-potted it and it responded very nicely. So nicely that I decided to move it indoors again. Thanks to better light. the variegation is even better now, though the tree is a slimmer and a tad sparse, having lost a number of trunks and branches. But it still looks quite nice and healthy.












Back in the summer of 2017, I started another cutting from this tree. I was a little ambitious, and tried to root not a simple cutting, but a substantial portion of a trunk, almost two feet long, with several branches. You can get away with this with a healthy ficus, but this one wasn't very healthy when I started it.

It took its sweet time and put out a couple of roots.

August 30, 2017

Oct 4, 2017

Oct 11, 2017

Oct 18, 2017

Oct 24, 2017

Dec 31st, 2017

I probably rushed potting it. But it looked okay at that time, and I had high hopes for it.

April 2019

An year and a half later, it's state is sad. Perhaps it didn't like staying outside all the time. Perhaps it didn't have a chance to develop good roots. When I made the cutting, the parent tree was not in good shape, and so the cutting probably never attained enough vigor.

I am going to make another attempt to revive this one... can't let go yet. I took a look at the roots, and they looked ok. Not a lot of them, but no rot, no tubers, etc. May be it's a combination of being outdoors and some pests. We shall see.

Spider Mites, eek!

April 2019: For the past several months, the ficus pre-bonsais have been declining. The leaves looking lack-luster (literally), developing spots, some even curling up unevenly and the plant looking somewhat sad over all. This coincided with the re-potting I did probably last summer/early-fall, during which I used lava rock for the first time.

It also followed not too long after I started using LED plant lighting for 12+ hours daily.

I had also started watering plants with fertilizer laced water regularly. So I suspected it was one of these changes that was affecting the plants.

Around the same time, I had also re-potted the peace lily into beautiful new pot, and used lava rock for that too (since peace lily doesn't like soil going dry at all, and lava rock is good for water retention). Instead of improving, the peace lily started showing strong leaf burns and wilting.

The peace lily was never under LED lighting though. So lava rock became the primary suspect. Perhaps, there is too much iron in it, I thought. Or may be this Home Depot lava rock was meant as a mulch, and they had added some pesticide to it.

So a few weeks ago, I re-potted all these plants again, getting rid of lava rock completely, and flushed the soil with a lot of water to remove any doubts of lingering "iron" or excess fertilizer. But to no avail. The ficuses are deteriorating, and the peace lily is doing no better.

Then yesterday, I stumbled upon spider mites in some forum. The phrases "dusty looking leaves" and "fine webbing" immediately rang a bell. Bingo! That's it. It's gotta be spider mites that are making my plants miserable. I took a magnifying glass to the leaves, and could see some irregular white flakes. Perhaps these are the mites. Don't matter - I decided to treat the plants with insecticidal soap, and gave each leaf a good hearty spray. For cuttings in development, I gave a spray of diluted rubbing alcohol.

Now it's wait and watch. I'll probably give these plants another spay in a couple of days. And really hope these plants improve.

June 2019 Update:  Happy to report that most plants are showing marked recovery after repeated spraying with mostly rubbing alcohol + water. The ficuses are almost back to normal, and starting to look really nice. But the peace lily us still sad. So it may be going through some other issue - not really the spider mites...

A Hobby that makes one deal with one's Mortality

I have often wondered what enables, even inspires, some people to think and dream beyond their own lifetimes, and work on grand projects with the sole hope that the projects would attain fruition after they themselves are long gone. In many cases, like the Egyptian Pharaohs, it was a firm belief in life after death. In may other cases, it's a hope for a sort of historical or cultural immortality; a legacy. Many people seem to be motivated by the urge to leave the world a better place for their progeny (those clever genes!).

But in all these cases, this thought of legacy or after-life comes when one is well into ripe old age (or in the sick bed). Perhaps, parents of young children occasionally wonder if they would be around to see their children grow up. I for one, sure hope to be around to see these rascals suffer at the hands of their young children! Other than that, my mortality has never come to fore in my mind, even as I venture into that confusing phase of one's life called "middle age".

That is, until I started dabbling in Bonsai. Tress grow excruciatingly slowly, and I knew that. When you plant a fruit tree in your yard, you need to wait a few years for it to get to, hmm, fruition. Sure. But Bonsai is different. The very essence of this craft is to grow miniature, mature trees in a pot, and make them mimic an ancient wild tree. While there are some techniques to fake the ancient look, the only authentic way is to simply give the tree the time it needs to grow old. And that time is measured in decades, and sometimes in centuries!

Utah Juniper Bonsai photographed in
the East Bay Bonsai Society Exhibit,
Oakland CA, March 2019

The Utah Juniper Bonsai pictured here is estimated to be a 250 year old tree, and the Bonsai training was started 17 years ago. It's not uncommon for bonsai to be many centuries old.













So, when you start a bonsai, say from a seedling or a cutting, this predicament hits you: you'll be dead of old age well before this tree is anywhere close to being "done". You may see your children have their own children, you may see your start-up company grow into a trillion dollar behemoth, you may even see your pet public works project get completed, but you will not see your seedling become an authentic, great bonsai tree. Deal with it.