A bonsai reborn

Jeeves, the seemingly omniscient servant featured in so many stories by P. G Wodehouse  said "there is always a way". In Jurassic Park the mathematician Ian Malcolm went further, saying "nature will always find a way".  Nature does amaze in so many ways, and sometime that amazement comes from the resilience of some of Nature's creations.  Plant want to be alive and will often astonish those who think they don't.

Well watered and heavily fertilized,this
seemingly dead ficus roared back.

Here's a case in point. This is a Willow Leaf Ficus (Ficus salicifolia) that has been growing in a commercial type Chinese pot going on ten years. It has an enormous rot spread-it looks like pancake batter that has expanded to fill the entire surface of the pot.

Seen from above, the dean trunk is almost
swallowed up by the root base.

Here's another view. The plant was well taken care of and grew well, but repotting was neglected-basically never done, So while the plant was putting out heavy top growth, it was also fill its pot with roots. Ten years worth of roots meant that it had to be watered by immersion and at some point early last spring either it was likely over watered or a watering forgotten (the latter is most likely) and the tree started to drop leaves. A tree that has built up that amount of root matter in a pot that this one had really has no moisture reserve-the roots are no longer growing into soil but into ever diminishing empty space.

Usually dropping leaves after a missed watering is par for the course with many trees,and that includes ficus. This one seemed to weakened because it was watered heavily after the incident, rather that sparingly.  Until the roots are back to 100% function, don't flood the plant-supply just enough moisture.

The size of the 'discard pile' on the left shows
just how much was taken off.

 The third strike  was allowing the plant to stay outside too soon-it got hit with a bit of frost in springtime an the result was pretty  obvious: the branches and trunk died back to the roots. What saved this plant was what killed it -laziness. The massive root ball the plant had built up made getting it out of the pot difficult (a draw back of inexpensive pots that have a lip). So rather that the plant being yanked out of the pot an consigned to the compost pile, it got set out of the way and ignored.

For less than $3.00 these flush cutters
make a great substitute for mame sized concave
cutters.

The result is what you see. The ficus gathered it's strength and popped out some adventitious buds, lots of them! The number of new shoots would be unsustainable as a bonsai, creating a knobby trunk and causing die back from lack of light and fungus problems. Massive pruning and thin was called for. Most of the new growth was taken off, leaving an unusual feature for a ficus bonsai, and that's deadwood. Most if not all of that welcome off as the plant is allowed to thicken up the few branches that are left and develop a new profile.

Most of the work on the roots was accomplished using a serrated steak knife like a root saw. The branches were scissored off, and the project gave me a chance to try out a new tool, a mame sized concave cutter. It was not labeled as such when I bought it at Harbor Freight Tools, but initial tests indicate that it was well worth the $2.79 price tag. Thats about 1/10 what a made in Japan, specially labeled for bonsai item might cost.