Ficus Benjamina history

The beginning of my work with this tree began with a 7 foot tall clump of trees that had fused together over a period of several years.

Lots of new growth and branch selection process beginning.

After a period of growing out and additional carving.

The eighth year underway.....about 6 weeks out from defoliation.

TOM,, It looks great !! I can,t belive that is the same stumps... very good work with this one.. take care john

John...thanks for the kind words...I am glad you like the composition...benji's are a good bit finicky so I feel lucky so far with this one.

Best regards,
Tom

Very nicely done and in only eight years. How do you or did you hide the scars so well?

During the past year I worked on the lower trunk area.  This August the tree was repotted and the planting angle was shifted to make the tree more upright.

nice work...
how the stumps got joined together... and what is the height of the tree.... you mentioned 7 feets....
inspirational work..
thanks

Thank you, yog....I appreciate the kind words.  The current height of the tree is 12 inches.  I acquired it as an approximately 7 foot tall planting of  about 15 trees.  It had been used for many years as an accent composition for graduation ceremonies and the like at a University.  Over the course of many years, the trees fused together on their own.  Hope this helps.

Best regards,
Tom

Excellent work Tom.
Jerry

Thank you, Jerry....I appreciate the kind words and also your generous guidance during its continued development over the last several years.
 Tom.

Wonderful work Tom ! Thank you for sharing this journey with us, and I'm sure it will only get better !

Ed

I would like to ask when do you defoliate and how often?
Do you do complete defoliation?
Do You get branch die back?
I trunk chopped one of the trunks, of a twin trunk FB and the trunk died?

Hi,Neli....good to hear from you. I do defoliate the tree completely on the average of every couple of years or so....sometimes there is branch dieback, but it always seems to be minimal. Regarding benjamina in general, in my experience they have been fairly finnicky....I have been lucky and blessed with this tree over the years so far, however. I hope this helps.

Best regards,
Tom

Thank You Tom,
I have already killed two trees by trunk chopping without leaving foliage..(the last one was deliberate to see how will perform).I have one extra fig, I will try defoliating before I defoliate my cute one.
I have one huge one like 4m in a pot with 20cm trunk....need to reduce it and I am scared...Maybe if I airlayer it will shoot bellow.

You are most welcome, Neli....sounds like you have some great work planned ahead for your figs. Good luck and be sure to keep us posted!

Tom

graft foliage low, then trunk chop just incase

That is a good idea, but I noticed that other benjamina that I airlayered shot bellow the airlayer...also my old pomegranate nana has the same problem...if I chop the trunk it shoots from ground level and the trunk dies, but if I airlayer they get shoots up.
But I want to graft some huge branches...and I mean huge like 5 cm diameter to start developing the tree...I might as well graft an apex since it will be faster.

Nice work Tom. Very nice. Thanks for sharing.

Budi

Good day, Budi.....thanks so much for your kind words. It was great hearing you. I have been an admirer of your work for many years.

Best regards,
Tom

Tom, based off your first picture this species clearly backbuds even when there is no green left on the tree. I had always heard this species of ficus wouldnt do this. Since the first trunk chop have you ever had it completely defoliated again and had it leaf out?

Yes, you are right....benjamina is quite finicky and in many cases will not bud back from bare trunk or branches or will be very erratic when it does. I took a big chance with this tree and have been lucky that things have worked since I first trunk chopped it about 10 years ago. Since then I have occasionally completely defoliated the tree for purposes of rewiring and thinning; however I have noticed that the foliage is very reluctant to reduce in size if any when I do.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Tom

thank you, that does help. I am not worried about reducing foliage size as the tree is giant and the leaves seem to be to scale. I just dont want my branches dying from being defoliated, as it is a fused (at least somewhat fused) tree and i wouldnt want to lose parts of the nebari if upper parts die. Do you lose any branches when you defoliate? I wonder if people that say they dont back bud are trying to prune it when its not during rampant summer growth?

You are welcome.... I do occasionally have some secondary and tertiary branch dieback, but nothing major. And when I do defoliate I try to do it at the height of the growing season (here in West Virginia....late July through the middle of August).