I’m Back Baby!

The Ficus Guy

After a short, several month break, I’m diving headfirst back into the hobby. There are two trees that I kept, but sold every other one. Those two trees are a Ficus I grew from seed, and a Ficus obliqua that I received from Jerry Meislik.

Both trees were placed next to the dining room window. The obliqua dropped all of its leaves and went dormant, and the seed grown Ficus began to sulk and drop in quality. The leaves began to weep, which I learned is a sign that the tree got too hot, too cold, or the roots are rotting:

See the sad looking, drooping leaves? I took this picture today, and the tree was repotted a couple of days ago. It used to be in a poor, packed soil that was staying far too wet. It’s now in a mixture of pumice, lava rock, and pine bark.

Now…

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The Current Collection

The Ficus Guy

First of all, a very Happy Father’s Day to all those who have the privilege of calling themselves father’s. May your day be full of beer and love.

This is just a quick post about my current collection. I’ve got a few trees, all Ficus of course, and all in different stages of development. Let’s start with this small Ficus obliqua I got from Jerry Meislik a few years ago:

It’s a small tree, but it’s been through quite a bit and keeps on fighting. It went dormant for a few months and lost all leaves. I’m pretty I made a post about this tree a couple posts ago. Here’s how it looked a couple months ago:

I stuck it in a temporary indoor greenhouse and it bounced back.

The next tree is this Ficus virens I bought from Wigerts Bonsai. Check out their websitehere.

I recently defoliated…

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You Did What?!

The Ficus Guy

Today I did a thing. I traded one large tree for one small tree. It may sound dumb, and looking at pictures it may just be dumb, but in the winter smaller trees are just easier to deal with. Less foliage means less lighting needed.

This is a tree I recently received, but realized was too big for me:

It’s a gorgeous microcarpa, but in order to fit it inside under lights it’d have to be reduced by a lot. I also don’t feel I have the styling knowledge necessary to take it to the next level.

So today I visited a friend who owns a 700 acre farm down the road from me. He’s bought all my trees off of me over the past year or so, and he was willing to trade this guy. What did I trade for? A tree he had bought from me that I…

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Wait, what?

The Ficus Guy

I’ve been getting notifications every now and then that I would get a new follower on this blog and I’d think “Oh, that’s neat.” I checked my follower count tonight and I’m up to over 50?! You all are cool, thanks for that!

I gotta be honest with you all, I’ve been doing really well with not buying any trees, but last week I cracked and bought one. Just a small one. A little Willow Leaf Ficus with some nice flaring to the base. I’m currently in talks with the seller on eBay as when it arrived the soil was bone dry. Not an ounce of water to it. The pot was wrapped in plastic, but it’s kinda pointless when there’s nothing actually keeping the soil wet.

Here’s the little guy. I don’t know what I’m going to do in the winter, I have no lights or anything. Should be…

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Flower Power

Art&Arsony

In the whole field of play, we constantly look up to some form of guidance to spin stories that introduce us to their realm.

Our garden, started 60 years ago by my grandparents, was to Paa and I, a territory of story-telling, playing music, and of sharing the funniest of experiences. This was a tradition heavily engrained into my routine and after Ajji’s sad passing when I was 5 years old, he took over gardening duties. Paa soon re-designed the place and potted another singapore cherry tree next to the entrance of the house and since it was younger and thinner in terms of size, I immediately categorized it as ‘chikka garden.’

This is how the game of ‘dhodd-garden, chikk-garden,’ came about, in which one ran across both plots of land,  dropping as many pebbles and rocks if caught in the wrong one. With this sense of protection around rocks…

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