Ficus Bonsai Trees - Repotting and Root Pruning Methods 🌱

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Notion Bonsai and today we're going to be working on a few ficus species. We're going to be giving them a repot and I'm going to be sharing with you some root pruning methods that you can use to improve the overall root structure and nebari of your bonsai. Okay so this is all of the ficus trees that we're going to be working on here today. There's five trees and my reasoning for working on so many trees at once is the last video that we made on ficus, we worked on all of these trees. If you haven't seen it go check it out, I'll leave a link to it in the description of this video. And secondly when working on trees, to give an example from just one tree like this one here, the root structure may not be that developed and there might be some principles that we would apply to a younger root structure over one that is a little bit more developed. So by giving lots of examples will give you a better understanding and idea of how to prune the roots for better structure. So the first tree that we're going to be working on is this ficus ginseng and the tools that we're going to be using in this video today are some root pruning shears, a chopstick, some wire cutters, branch cutters and just in case we decide to prune some of the foliage some twig cutters. Now if you've seen the video last year with this ficus ginseng you'll remember that we pruned the top quite heavily and now over the course of a year this tree has grown a lot of leaves and is starting to develop a lovely canopy on the top but it still has a long way to go. So I'm not going to be working much on the foliage today, I'm going to let the top of the tree have a little rest for a year until it starts pushing out a lot more growth maybe out to here but all we're going to do today in this tree is work on the roots. So I'm going to start by gently taking this tree out of the pot, okay this pot that I have here is a bowl that I have found in a charity shop so I got it for really cheap maybe like two pounds which is like two dollars and then on the bottom here I took a ceramic drill bit and just drilled two holes there. I think it looks quite nice as a little makeshift pot to train something in for a while. And now before we continue with this repot I would just like to say on a side note that if you're watching this video because you think that your ficus is getting sick or not doing well, you think it's going to die, maybe you see the leaves are yellowing, the leaves are dropping off of it. From what I have seen the number one cause of ficus dying is because they're in too compact soil that holds so much moisture. Now that's not to say that's exactly what's wrong with your tree, just what I have seen when people buy a ficus bonsai from like a supermarket or somewhere that isn't really specialised in bonsai, it comes in almost this coconut core composty soil that doesn't really allow for good free drainage and evaporation of water over a short period of time. You see the reason why it's planted in this type of soil for like commercial sellers like that is first of all perhaps the country that they're coming from has a hotter climate than somewhere like the UK, less humid also, so they need that soil that holds lots of moisture because it's so hot and they don't want to be watering like three, four times a day. And secondly having it in a soil that holds a lot of moisture for posting and transportation to get it from the origin country to wherever you are. If you had that in bonsai soil there's a good chance it will dry up on the way over so they put it in this really moist soil so that it will live in transport. But just to anyone in the UK or America or somewhere you don't really get super hot climates like Australia and India and all them other tropical regions, basically anywhere that ficus for you is an indoor plant I would say as soon as you buy it and it's in that composty soil get it repotted as soon as you can into a nice bonsai soil provided the tree is in good health before you do so. Alright so let's work on this ficus here. I did this exact thing with this ficus ginseng two years ago when I bought it, it came in a very composty soil and the soil mix that I have here is a mix of pumice, akadama and lava rock and whenever you have a bonsai soil mix that has lots of air in it this will keep the roots nice and healthy as lots of oxygen can get into the roots. Every time it's watered new air is pulled down through the root ball and if you keep that air nice and new and fresh then there isn't any chance of a fungal infection developing and I'd say that's true with any bonsai you know the more compact the soil is the less new nice clean air can get pulled down in it with each watering. As I rake here I'm raking just outwards from the trunk radially I'm not pulling towards myself curling it around or anything like that I'm just taking the chopstick and raking outward and as I do it I'm rotating the tree and when you have nice free draining soil like this it makes it so much easier to repot as it just almost falls away. Now because there's some moss growing up the trunk here I'm going to take a nylon brush you could also use a toothbrush and just scrub away that moss. I wouldn't advise using a wire brush on a ficus like you would a juniper that would just be too harsh for the little soft bark on the ficus. I'm going to turn the tree on its side and begin to work on the bottom here just going to work outward from the trunk and when I repotted this I don't think I removed all of the coconut core as I thought it might have been too harsh for the tree at the time and that's why I'm sort of finding some of that still inside here but today we're really going to give this a good repot and clean out all of that old soil. Now I'm going to go give these roots a nice wash. In bonsai to wash roots you can jet them with a hose or you can just fill up a little basin of water and dunk it in. That's what I'm going to do here just to catch any of the soil. Alright so this is the roots that we have left here I would really have liked a lot more roots to be developed in two years. All of these outer roots here have been developed from where it was in the bonsai soil but still in at the centre here this was all blacked up with coconut core and I think that's why it hindered root development from areas in here. So in this case in bonsai you don't always have to prune super heavily on the roots. All I'm going to cut off is some roots that I think are structurally a problem for the future. So this root here that's coming and winding around both of these trunks, if this thickens up over time it'll cause a lot of problems for me in the future. So just as it is now there isn't many roots attached to it also. I think this is going to be okay to remove. Start by removing a little bit, see there's nothing attached to that. This root's winding back so I'm just going to shorten it here. As this is quite a thick root and there isn't many feeder roots attached to it it's okay just to shorten. This root here, this is the aerial root that's coming off of the trunk and down, there isn't many feeder roots on this and I think the main reason for that is when this tree was planted it was only planted to here so this little root was barely in the soil so that's what all these little roots are. I think because of this when I plant this again today I'm going to plant it maybe this deep to give all this space here lots of chances to grow more roots so that maybe in the future if we get roots all the way around here we could remove everything below here entirely. It's just an idea, it could happen but I'm still going to try and improve down here. Now I can see there's a big bulbous root coming off there, probably chop that. So this is the bulbous root that we cut off, got quite a lot of feeder roots. That's all I'm going to remove to this root ball today, just a few little roots here and there. We're going to get this into a better pot. Now just to help this tree get healthy again and to develop lots and lots of roots I'm going to plant this in an ordinary plastic flower pot and the reason why I'm using a flower pot instead of a bonsai training pot is I want it to be deep enough to submerge the ficus up to this point. So I've got this little circle of bonsai mesh, I'm just going to put it into the bottom of the pot. This is just to stop any soil falling out. I did a little test there a second ago and the soil fell through the bottom holes. Put it in. Now we can take our ficus ginseng, we're going to plant it nice and deep in this pot. Because I'm putting this so deep in the pot and the fact this tree is going to be indoors where it won't get blown around by the wind or it won't have any chance of being knocked over, I'm not going to be wiring this tree into the pot but if you wish to you can wire the bonsai in so it doesn't move but just in this particular scenario I'm okay not using wire. Here I can just work the soil in with a chopstick as I hold it in position to work out any air gaps that may be under the tree and as you hold it in position and work the soil in the tree will then stay in the position that you held it in. Alright so I'm pretty sure this tree is going to do really well now in this pot over the next year. I kind of think it looks really cool in that pot too. Like if we were able to get roots at this point here it would be much more in proportion as a little bonsai than what it was before where the roots were like down here, looked sort of too tall. Personally I didn't really like the bulbous root look of the Ficus ginseng trees but I think I would like it if it was this short so we might be able to get roots here in the next few years. When you water a bonsai for like the first time after repotting it's really important that you water it over and over so that all of that substrate can really absorb all of the water. You see because it's so aerated it'll just tend to fall down through it so by watering it over and over gives them pieces of pumice and akadama a little bit of time just to absorb the water. And also when you water you want the water to run out clear like this so that there's no fine particles in the soil. That water to me still looks ever so slightly cloudy so I need to keep watering. Alright so let's move on to the next tree. Now this little Ficus down here is actually a cutting off the previous ginseng Ficus that we worked on and the species that this is is a Ficus microcarpa. Also have another one here which is a cutting off the very same tree again but for now we're going to give this little one a repot. So we're going to get it out of this pot. The roots on this one are looking very healthy. Now similarly to the last tree we're going to work from the top here. I want to get rid of all of this moss. Not really sure how this developed indoors there must have been some moss spores on the soil somehow. Propagated moss over time. And whenever you work on roots of a bonsai you never really want to be in a rush. Some people think that once a bonsai is out of a pot it can't breathe or something. This isn't the case at all. The tree can be out of the pot for really as long as you need. So long as you keep the roots nice and moist and healthy. And to keep the roots nice and moist it's always good to keep a little spray bottle and you can just go along and mist the roots as you work. Loosening up the soil. This one is a lot more composty than that last one. If you are growing ficus microcarpa from cutting, like this one here, unlike the ficus benjamina where it will root fairly quickly in the matter of a couple of weeks in water, the ficus microcarpa can take a little bit longer. I think I had this little cutting in a glass of water for about four months before I even started to see roots forming on it. And finally after four months it started to grow roots which I was really happy about. So if you do try and grow one of these from a cutting and you don't see them right away have patience. Keep replacing the water. I can see the roots here were winding around. Look at how long this is. This is really starting to get exciting because I can start to see a nice flat nebari on the top here. Okay so the roots are now lovely and clean and I can see immediately, just that I noticed before, this super long root that's coming off of the root ball. It's the only one that grew like this. Sometimes you get a root that just decides to grow super long and because this root is nice and thick I don't want to prune it very very close. All I want to do is prune it maybe here and allow that root then to become a part of the root flare or nebari on the top. So I'm going to cut it here. Just shorten it in. That's all that we have removed. Now if I just sit this flat on the table we can really see a nice flat root flare that this has now. Now what I have wanted to happen ever since I grew this from a cutting is for this tree to have a lovely flare at the base so it comes down the trunk and then flares outward. All the roots are nice and lateral going around. I really like how it flows down here so perhaps that could be a possible front. Now just a little note on the top of this tree here. Earlier in the year I felt that this tree was like super long in the middle here. I really didn't like how it was developing. It looked really silly. It had no leaves up the middle and then it had some leaves at the top. So I decided to come along and just give this tree a trunk chop. I felt that the sooner I did it the better so I just recorded a little bit on my phone of me doing it. I can see here there's this little root which is a little bit too high for the root plane that I want to develop below it. So for that little one I can just come along and snap it off here. A lot of people think pruning the roots in bonsai like this will do harm to the tree when actually that's quite the opposite. Pruning roots in bonsai actually helps the tree to develop lots of more fibrous roots like this and the fibrous roots is what feeds the tree nutrients and water. Getting a little bit out of control over here. Let me just rake that out a little. That one's a little bit long. Any of these roots that are growing straight down I'm going to get rid of. This root here is quite thick and it's also pointing downward so I'm just going to remove it and shorten it to here. These roots are getting a little bit long. When roots are pruned in bonsai, the majority of species that you work on, maybe the only exception would be pine trees as they don't really like their roots to be worked on so heavily. You're trying to promote lateral growing roots outward and any roots that's growing straight down you would remove. And all of this is very much dependent on whether the health of the tree is good. And that goes the same for any roots that's springing upward. I would prune them off also as I want them to flare downward into the soil. And over time of doing this, you start to get this really nice flare of roots on the surface where it looks like the tree is really gripping into the soil. It makes the tree look a lot more mature. So see here on this side how it flares down into the soil like that. On this side here I feel like this little tiny root is a little bit too high on this side compared to this side. So I want it to flare a little bit lower down on this side there. So because of that, I'm going to remove this little root. So now it's more balanced on each side. That's all I'm going to do to this little tree for today. Now unlike the previous tree, I am going to wire this tree into a new, slightly larger plastic flower pot. So I'm going to take some maybe, what is this, 1.5mm bonsai wire or aluminium wire and I'm just going to measure it here. Take some wire cutters and I'm going to feed it up through the bottom of the pot. It's really important that the soil doesn't fall out because if it does, you get a mess in your house, especially if you have these as indoor trees. I'm not going to wire the mesh in. The weight of the soil, once I put it in, should hold it in place. With this one, I'm going to start with a little bit of this medium grit soil on the bottom of the pot. That's just to hold in the mesh. But also this is the kind of grit that won't also fall through the mesh. Now here that I've made a little mound, I'm going to switch over from the soil type from medium grit to a lot more finer grit. I'm just going to sprinkle that in. So this is more like a mame bonsai type soil mix, which I think is very fitting for this little tree here. Now before I put the tree in, I would like to try out something new today. If I plant this like this, I'll get lots of roots developing underneath since this is such a deep pot and I don't want that. Instead, what I'd like to do is place a rock underneath here and allow the roots to grow around that so that we get more lateral growing roots and the rock prevents one growing straight down out of the bottom of the flare of roots. So I'm going to go find a rock. I'll be right back. I'm just going to give these a little mist. All right, so I find a little white pebble. I think this will be enough to put the tree over top of. Now this isn't to get confused with a root over rock bonsai. That's something very different. The only reason I put in this rock here is to stop the roots growing there, but I don't want the roots to grow over the rock and remain embedded in it. So every time I come back to repot this, it's important that I remove the rock. I'm just going to shimmy this down into the soil a little and I'm going to attempt to wire it into the rock, if that makes sense, but I feel like it's still a little bit too high in the pot. I'm going to pour out some of this soil. Yeah, this looks a lot better. Now I'm going to wire it onto the rock. I'm coming around. And I think I've said this before, working on smaller trees in bonsai definitely improves your dexterity. Like, working very precise like this teaches you patience also, which I think is a great thing. Now we can prune off these little bits of wire that's excess. I think that's pretty stable in the pot. Maybe I should add another piece of wire going the other way, just so that it's really stable until it starts to go around that rock. If you are wiring ficus into a pot like this, I would say be very, very mindful of the wire in a few weeks time. As the tree starts to grow again, you can come back, remove it before it starts to scar or bite into the trunk. So I think I'm pretty happy with how this is sitting here. I'm just going to fill it up with more soil. I think this is going to be really interesting to see how this little ficus grows on the rock. Now I've seen this planting over the rock idea done by Dave from the YouTube channel Blue Sky Bonsai, and he did this with his De Shojo Maple. If you haven't seen his video, you should really check it out. I'll leave a link to his in the description also. Now that's all of the air pockets worked out of this tree, now let's move on to the third tree. And now just so that this video isn't too long, I'm going to time lapse past the parts where I rake away the old soil and give the roots a wash, as you guys already know how to do that. And we're going to really focus in on the part where we do pruning decisions on the roots. I'm not even going to give these roots a wash. The soil loosened up really easily from being in this lovely bonsai soil. Right away, I'm going to remove this super long root. There doesn't seem to be many problems on this root flare, it's got a nice flat base on it. The top here, there isn't many growing straight up, maybe there's a little few here. This one here is going off to the side where I'd like it to come outward from the trunk, so I'm going to prune there. This one's growing up. This one here is a little bit high on the root plane. Same with this one. And I think on that, I'd be happy with how this root flare is on this tree. Now I'd just like to move up to the top of this tree for a second. I would like to reduce the apex a little bit here today, as there is so much things going on. I can't really see one definite trunk line. It comes up and splits here. Just so that you guys can see more of what's going on, I'm going to remove some leaves on this. And from what I can see, I have a few options of what I make the next leader of the tree to be. I could cut right down at the base here, like the other tree, but for this tree, I'm not going to do that. I want to keep it nice and tall, but that is one option. Another option would be to cut this tree right here and allow this to be the next leader. Another option would be to cut off what we were going to make the leader and have this as the apex. You could cut off these two branches and allow this little one here to be the leader. There's so many options with a tree like this. I think for what I'm going to do here is remove this one and keep all of this. I just feel like the way that it's going off at such a sharp angle would be difficult to make this a leader. So with that, I'm going to come in with the branch cutters very close to the trunk and just cut this off. I'm very happy with how that looks. So this would be the front of the tree now. You've got your branches. First branch is here, and you've got more branches as we go up, and I'm really happy with this apex. I'm not going to prune the growing tip here as I want that to grow maybe this long before it's cut again, just to help thicken the tree. And this little branch that we have cut off would make an excellent cutting. If you stick this in some soil or even in a glass of water, it'll grow roots and become a new tree. I got too many ficus at the moment, so I might just root this and give it to a family member. I'm going to pot it into this little plastic flower pot, just see if this is going to fit. There's a little root that's too long there. And when you're potting in like this, any roots that are too long around the edges, I just like to cut off so that it goes in freely. And that is all I'm going to do to this tree today. I think it's looking pretty good with that branch removed off the top here. And in the next year or so, it'll develop lots of more roots for us to come in and really refine that structure. And now with these final two ficus, I'm going to be treating these trees a little bit differently from how I treated the other ones. You see the other ones were single trunk trees and these two here are clump style bonsai, which is a combination of multiple trees put together in a clump. This one here, I started from cutting and it actually came from this parent plant here. It's actually really strange now how this is getting almost taller than that one. So we're going to start here by just taking this tree out of the pot. Now just looking at this here, I can see that this tree has put on some root growth. Not a lot, but it is a little bit more from when we last worked on it. But it hasn't yet filled the pot that was in. And for that reason, I'm not going to do any root work on a tree like this. In bonsai, sometimes it's good to know when not to do any root work, like in this case here. So when replanting it back into the same pot, I've decided to plant it a little bit deeper. I'm not going to remove anything off the top of this tree here, just because I want all of this to help thicken each one of these little trunks. The only thing I'm going to remove is this little one here that is hidden against the lip of the pot. But aside from that, everything else is going to stay. The roots on this tree may very well be the same as the last one. I'll just take this out of the pot here to see. Ah, now this one's got quite a lot more roots than the last one. I'm going to say this one grew a lot more for the fact that the trunks on these trees are thicker. So it's really no surprise that this clump grew a little bit faster. But by no means does this really need repot at the moment. It's got lots of soil here that it still didn't fill in the pot. But my reason for repotting this one is because, in a clump style, what you would like to do is have all of the trees that you've put together fuse and become one homogenous tree. And if I look at these trees here, these two have successfully fused at the base. But this one here is still a little bit wobbly and it hasn't fused together with the clump. So today what I'm thinking of doing is either removing this tree entirely, or I could plant this maybe up to here to encourage this to fuse a lot better onto the soil over time. I think first I'm going to separate it and have a look and see what's going on. And now just because these roots haven't fully filled the pot, doesn't mean we still can't do a little bit of root work on this. There's plenty of roots here to feed the tree even if we remove some. And also because it's spring, all of the energy is really moved up to the top of this tree at the moment. And I can see some dead roots that really need cut off. The roots from it are getting quite tangled with what's going on here. There's a big massive thick root that I can see there that I don't think is going to be a good thing to have in the long run. That is if I want this tree to be in here as a part of it. I think I do. I think two kind of looks a little silly. You kind of need that third one to make it work. I found another really thick root here which I think should go. I'm just going to shorten it. It's good to get that out. Not many roots attached to it. All is looking pretty good here. We've got a gap now for this tree to go into. And now just on the point of contact that I want it to be pressed against the tree, I'm going to cut just to make a little fuse point. I'm going to do this again here. And what I would really like is live tissue against live tissue. That's really exposed now. Then I'm going to push the two pieces of live tissue against each other in the hopes that they will fuse together. Now to help me with doing this on the trunk, instead of trying to come in with the branch cutters and try and cut a piece off of the trunk, it may be a little bit difficult. I'm just gently scraping away with my grafting knife here at the same area. I really want the part that's exposed around here to be a very clean cut. That'll encourage proper healing. I'll do the same here on this little bit. So just very gently. Now if you are using a grafting knife like this here to make a cut, I advise you have it extremely sharp because that way then you get a cleaner cut, which encourages proper healing. And also you don't have to put as much pressure into what you're doing, which in turn makes the tool a lot safer to use. I'm going to put these two pieces together like this. So before we wire, I'm going to make sure that they're exactly where I would like them to be. Put it around. Just twist it off here. This will hold that little clump together for us. Now it's important you don't let the wire bite into the trunks, but I am going to tighten this just ever so slightly to keep the pressure on them. But just make sure if you are tightening it not to over tighten it. So just do a little bit at a time. Check all the way around with each tighten. I think at that, that's really tight together. And I'm going to plant this up to here, just that moisture stays around this little fuse point and it really helps it fuse together. There's nothing wrong with reusing some of that old soil that was in here previously. I think that's a pretty good height there. And again with this one, I'm not going to be removing any of the foliage. I'm just going to let it now get healthy in this little plastic pot. So and on that, I'm going to end off this video right here. That's just a few different approaches and methods that you can use when putting the roots on your ficus bonsai. And again, you don't have to repot your bonsai every single year. In general with ficus, you would like to repot maybe every two years just to keep the roots in check. And of course, with older ficus trees, they would need repot less often as they're slowed down a little. Let me know what you thought of this video down in the comments below. Is there anything that you would do differently? I'm always open to new ideas. And leave a like on this video. It really helps out the channel a lot with the YouTube algorithm. And if you would like to support me and the things that I do on this channel, please consider hitting the thanks button down below. And if you would like to stay up to date with all the things that I do off camera, please follow me on Instagram. It's at Notion Bonsai. And you'll be able to see all the things that I do on there. But on that, thank you so very much for watching.