guesskoenig

I received two trees a couple of days ago and have been taking care of them with out really doing anything else except pulling them up to see their roots. I can not see the juniper's around the outside so it must still be growing in the huge pot it came in, although the elm looks like it wants out. I have breeze/pine mulch sitting around to repot it with and I was going to put it into a good sized planter to promote growth. However, I was wondering if there is a good way to make it grow thick and tall but still keep that tiny foliage. It has very tiny little leaves with only three or four larger ones that are yellowing.

On the juniper, it is a procumbens nana and has the largest spread of any tree I have. It also has very small needles, which I was like. The thing I was wondering about with this tree is what I could do with it. I was thinking about doing a cascading style but it is slightly gargantuan and I would not know how to go about this. Also is there anything special I need to do with the juniper? I water the elm and the ficus twice a day and mist them pretty thoroughly, and they seem to do just fine. I do the same with the juniper but I know you can't tell you've messed up until it's too late with needled trees so I was wondering if that watering technique will work for it.

One last thing, both the elm and the ficus were stumped and have ugly cuts where it happened and I'm trying to figure out a way to get rid of the scars. I can't bind any of the branches down on the ficus, as I tried and one started breaking because in relation to the tree it's like a mile away from the nearest branch because of it's curve. None of the branches would be suitable for training on the elm in this fashion either. I mention this because it was the only solution I was provided with a few weeks ago, and don't know what else to try.

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treebeard55

Ficus are vigorous growers; there's a good chance the scar will grow over within a few years.

As for the elm: if you can't hide or get rid of a defect, use it! That's right, use it. What you can do is extend the scar and deepen it, to create a hollow-trunk tree.

I did that with a mail-order Chinese privet that arrived with two gaping pruning wounds, and it became my wife's favorite among my trees.

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Treebeard 55
Steve Moore
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philgrayser

Tree beard is right, use the scars as an ornimental feature!! they can look really good if done properly.
Im not really sure that it is a good idea to water your trees twice a day and spray them, maybee too much watering??!! Time will tell (yellowing leaves, root problems).

Can you dig out some of the Junipers trunk from under the soil (see if it has nice roots or a good trunk line) then you might have a better idea as what to do with it as regards to style. Cheers Phil G.

Mortalis

I grow nearly exclusively ficus I have used a technique Jerry has on his page to cover scars faster by grafting across the scar it works well and if you graft several at once it can be very fast a 8 months to a year.

Advanced Fig Grafting Page 2

If your going to grow ficus his page is great info. I have yet to buy his book because I am Exceedingly poor at the moment but I would lay even money its better than the website.

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"I'm ready to meet my maker, whether my maker is ready to meet me is another matter" W.Church hill.

guesskoenig

I have some gardener's tape, a large roll of what is basically twisty ties off of things like bread, and some blue 50mm wire for jewelry with which to train my trees. It is obviously not the best collection of supplies, but it's what I have.

As far as the ficus goes when I tried to bend two branches over to graft they began to break with that wonderful ooze starting to pour out so I bend them back to get the tree to form a seal on the break. I do not know if this is normal or not but the ficus has very thin limbs. The more I mess with this tree the more it occurs to me that it may not be suitable for bonsai. I'd like to focus on the newer trees for awhile and just let the ficus grow, perhaps as an indoor plant as I have with some succulents I picked up.

guesskoenig

I am probably going to repot my ficus again because either the soil it is in or the rapeseed cakes I'm using for fertilizer have been attracting insects. There are little gnats and long, red shiny things that can fly as well as what I believe are aphids. The cakes aren't supposed to deterioate but of course they have, turning into a mushy mess that looks similiar to cat crap.

Mortalis

You can wait a few months and your branches will likely be long enough then to bend over the cut. But really at the size your tree is if you let it grow its going to heal that over.

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"I'm ready to meet my maker, whether my maker is ready to meet me is another matter" W.Church hill.