grafting gone wrong, I did it this time

I tried making a thread graft on a Ficus microcarpa. Tried is the key word. Things went south during the process. Thread grafting is when you drill a hole in a tree and place a branch in that hole. Usually the selected branches are thin and small. However, on Ficus microcarpa I have seen some pretty big grafts. So, without further adue here is my story:

I wired this branch so I could lower it. After it set I decided to chop the branch down and try grafting it to another Chinese banyan.

Parent tree

I wanted to get everything right. I made some holes of different sizes so that the branch would fit snugly in its new home.

I shaved the bark down to the cambium layer

I removed some of the bark to expose the cambium layer. My idea is that the cambium layer of the branch and the host tree should touch so that nutrients and moisture can flow to the branch from the tree.

I chose the spot where the new branch would go. This was not my first choice. This tree was collected. Before I could get to it the gardeners for years had hacked at it. It has a lot of scarring. Where I wanted to put the graft there was not enough living tissue. So I chose this side. It also needed a branch.

I played with the branch position to see where it would look the best.

I chose a spot and started to drill. The flesh was a lot softer than I thought it would be. I made sure that I did not drill too deep.

I inserted the branch and to my horror it was somewhat loose. I needed a tight sealed fit. I had many choices at this point. However, I might make things worse. I chose what I thought would be the most successful and the most simple option...

… I wedged two pieces of a bamboo skewer.

Then I sealed it all with beeswax.

What went wrong? Maybe I forgot to change the drill bit back to the smaller size. Perhaps I did not drill straight in and out making a bigger hole. Or i did not factor in when i shaved the bark to get to the cambium layer. I strongly think it was the bit size though. This was my first thread graft. I hope that it takes, but knowing what I did I won't be surprised if the graft does not take. Im hoping that because it is a chinese banyan, and they are resilient trees that it will work out. Cheers.

Update April 18, 2016

Last weekend we had unusually strong winds. the tree was blown off the stand. A few branches were cracked including the graft. This will be marked as a Learning experience.

Kapok the silk tree, pre bonsai experiments on a tropical

I have always collected seeds. wherever I went if i saw fruiting trees I have tried to take some seeds home. Sometimes they would not germinate. In the early days of the internet information was not as readably available. Now, information is limited by one’s imagination. There is stratification, scarification, dormancy, etc. Each plant has its prerequisite for germination. There is one plant that I have had one hundred percent germination. That plant is the Kapok. The kapok is a tropical plant that can grow 230 feet tall. It has buttressing roots that are tall enough to hide a person. It is a very impressive tree. I have searched for kapok bonsai on the information super highway to no avail. Well I found one example, but i crave more.

Kapok at Yamaguchi bonsai nursery in Culver City

Last year I collected kapok seeds from a tree at work. One year later and the results are incredible.

sapling Kapok one year old.

The growth rate was amazing. The trunk taper was phenomenal. This was looking to be a very interesting bonsai. After a year they have not lignified. I have wired them a bit. I have noticed because they are soft and grow so fast you have to keep an eye on the wiring. Let the wire bite into it a bit. The wire scar will heal very fast. Be vigilant though.

One year's growth

The saplings grow a palmate leaf that grows from the trunk. They look like a branch and leaves. However, the whole “branch” falls off after a while. The tree kept growing, and the leaves kept falling. There were no branches. I decided to nip it in the bud. I cut the growing tip and hoped that the plant would force branches out of the place where its leaves had left a scar. My gamble paid off and the tree started to grow branches.

True branches growing from the crotch

Here I wired a kapok in semi cascade style, han-kengai. It so happens to be one of my favorite styles. The trunk is green, so it is super malleable. I am very excited to see this tree develop in the next two years.  

I have brought you up to date on my experiment. I'll keep you updated. Cheers.

Update April 13

We have branches. Or at least that is what they look like.

Update June 11

Let me show you a recent pic of the tree pictured right above:

After I took the wire off the tree straightened itself. The problem is that the trunk has not lignified. The trunk is still green and not woody. The wire can cut deep into the soft tissue fairly quickly. Now, when I wired this tree i actually broke it in two places. The tree healed and I removed the wire. I thought that because of the scaring of the broken points the tree would retain its shape. I was wrong. Back to the drawing board I suppose. 

Update July 8

I tried something else. I chopped the kapok under the oldest leaf. It was just a knob. Four branches grew from that knob. Now my Kapok looks like a palm tree. Could this be a new style in bonsai? Palm tree style bonsai? 

All kidding aside, I liked where the tree was going, but I thought that it needed an even more dramatic pruning. So I chopped a different tree even lower. I cut at the place where I would like to see new branches grow. A week after the chop I saw one small bud growing out, it lives! 

It should grow back

Update July 19

There are little branches growing from the trunk. The trunk chop seems to be the best way to promote branch growth lower on the trunk.

Update July 23

It's only been 4 days after the last update but the branches have grown tremendously.

Update August 26:

It looked promising. However, things took a turn. The kapok decided to replace its trunk and not grow new branches.

Update Nov 4

I was looking at the kapoks and I saw one that had spikes:

One of the trees is growing the thorn/ spikes that are typical of some of these trees. 

Grow a fig tree from seed, Moreton bay ficus, Ficus macrophylla

Disclaimer: the Moreton bay fig tree should not be planted in the ground. This tree is very aggressive and its roots can cause a lot of damage. Santa Barbara has a huge one: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moreton_Bay_Fig_Tree_(Santa_Barbara,_California). I won't let it get that big you say? The roots of young trees damage pipes, concrete, etc. Do not risk it unless you have half an acre of land you want to donate to a future giant. Ficus macrophylla is a banyan ficus which means that they grow as epiphytes on other trees. Figs need fig wasps to reproduce. what happens is that the tree produces a little ball with a hole in it. then a pregnant wasp comes in and lays its eggs. When the wasp pushes her way in the fig it pollinates the new fig. There's another kind of fig wasp that comes and lays eggs and they eat the first kind of wasp. so if you love eating FIGS this is the way that figs get pollinated, because if you ever notice a fig doesn't have flowers on the tree. All the flowers are on the inside of that little ball.

This is the tree that I collected the figs from. Most of the figs are not ripe, but by next week the floors are going to be littered with purple little balls. I found a handful of ripe Figs. Birds love to eat these figs. last year I tasted it and it tastes almost exactly like the figs that we normally eat. However, they are dry, have big hard seeds. They are not really for human consumption unless you have nothing else to eat.

The place where I work opened in 1905. I don't believe that this fig is that old because the one in Santa Barbara is huge in its maybe 15 years older than where I work. So, maybe this one was planted in the forties or fifties.

Here you can see the typical look of the Moreton Bay fig with the spear-like leaves and tight clusters of figs.

I only found a few figs on the floor. Most of them are still green. These were probably knocked down by birds from the canopy of the tree. 

This is all I found at this moment but next week I'll be stepping on hundreds of them.

Here's a close-up of a Moreton Bay Fig. I think it's quite beautiful.

What you need to do to separate the seeds from the flesh. Get a bottle with a lid, some hydrogen peroxide, and then later we'll be adding some water. The hydrogen peroxide that they sell at the pharmacy is pretty weak but its strong enough to break some of the sugars into water and carbon dioxide. 

So, first split the figs in half and then scoop out the flesh and seeds and put them inside the bottle.

This is where you add the hydrogen peroxide. you are going to add enough to make a soft slurry. Close the bottle up and shake as hard as you can. The key is to separate all the fleshy stuff and the sugars from the seeds.

After you shake the hydrogen peroxide add plenty of water. After you add the water pour some of it out, keep adding water until it becomes nice and clear. All the good seeds will have sunk to the bottom so don't worry about losing any of the good seeds unless you pour out all the water. 

For the potting mix, I used potting soil mixed with about 40% sand. A mistake that I made last year which led to me losing all of my seedlings was that I planted them in a super shallow container. Maybe it was an inch or an inch and a half deep. My plants had grown a good 6 inches tall. They look like a little forest, but the dirt was so shallow that the roots dried out very easily and that's how I lost them.

I poured the water with the seeds right into the soil. Some of the seeds stuck to the bottle so I had to add more water and pour it in again.

On top, I added a fine mixture of turface and sand and volcanic rock and fine organic matter.

To finish everything off I wet the pot thoroughly. then I added these bamboo skewers, I am going to put a plastic bag on it and tie it with a rubber band.  This will make a mini greenhouse that'll keep everything nice and humid and extra warm. Warmth is essential for the seeds to germinate.

That's it for preparing seeds for germination. Now all you have to do is sit back relax and keep the dirt nice and moist. Cheers.

Update: March 25  

They are here in time for Easter. 23 days after they were planted the Ficus Macrophylla popped out to greet the world. Hopefully, I will have a forest of seedlings carpeting the pot soon.

Update: May 19

The seedlings are two months old. They are much bigger and have their first pair of true leaves. 

Update: June 22

Growth continues to be steady for these seedlings

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Update July 4

I decided that it was time to separate some of the small ficusses and let them grow individually

Now we'll see how resilient ficus macrophylla is, will they survive?

Update August 10

Here are the seedlings. The trunks are lignafyjng. 

Update November 29

I finally got around to separating the ficus macrophylla seedlings. They are three months shy of a year. These are from the original planting and are not the plants I separated above. 

Ficus Macrophylla Seedlings

The trunks are almost as thick as my pinky. That's very good growth for one year considering they grew from seed. I put each in individual pots. My plan for the ficus is to fertilize every week in the spring and every other week in the summer. Growth should be amazing. I will try growing F. benghalensis, and F. religiosa next year.

September 19/2017

I planted more seeds this year. Most pots had small ficus growing. A few pots did not. We had a heat wave a couple of weeks ago. I noticed that after the heat wave the ficus started to germinate. Warmth is definitely a factor in germinating ficus seeds. The seeds in both of these pots were planted at the same time. The heat made the seeds on the right germinate.