Bonsai for Beginners | What Happens If You Miss This KEY Ficus Task?

Today my Ficus came outside and I will show you everthing you need to know about pruning your Bonsai. Just a few months sun outside and the rest indoors!!! This week is ALL about Tigerbark Ficus, Root-Over-Rock and Forest Group Development. Full of my Pruning Tips and Advice 😊
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God Bless & Happy Bonsaiing
Xavier

— TIMESTAMPS —
00:00 Time to move my Bonsai outside for growth.
02:40 WHY do I defoliate now?
04:09 An issue with ‘Clip & Grow’?
06:34 Pruning & Defoliation Tips.
07:53 Do I need to seal my cuts?
10:05 Pruning examples – crossing shoots.
12:24 One step forward – two steps back!
13:29 Where should I start?
16:20 Reducing the Apex.
19:15 Aftercare & Cuttings.
20:49 Root-Over-Rock Ficus Update.
23:37 The problem with Scale Insects.
26:05 Ficus Forest Group Update.
29:41 The Ficus Short debate continues.
31:00 Bonsai is for enjoyment 😊

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Handmade Ceramics by: Dawn Isaac of deiceramics.com

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#bonsaiuk #bonsaitree #bonsaicare #bonsaigarden #growingbonsai #spring #ficus

finally that time has arrived the tiger bark fus and my other indoor trees have come outside in fact they’ve been outside for 2 weeks now and that has reminded me immediately of one of the things I should have done a week ago can you guess what that is it’s important and it’s going to affect the ongoing development of this tree we’re also going to be having a good look and see how indeed my fus forest has been developing since I put it together in February this year looking good we’re going to have a peer beneath the foil and see if finally this tiger bark route over rock has actually taken grip i mean I laid the foundations for this way back in 2022 and there’s only one of them left and of course I’m going to be updating you on probably one of my most notorious of YouTube shorts and it involved this what I thought was a pretty decent tiger bark fus but it certainly created a lot of debate well how is it come on has that big chop really made a positive or negative difference or are we undecided anyway for all those questions to be answered and a great little video all about how I prune and deal with my tiger bark fus in the middle of May keep watching it’s going to be great best thing the indoor trees are finally [Music] outside hi it’s a here welcome to my Bonsai retreat right now it’s May the 14th and and as I mentioned earlier all my indoor trees are now outdoors enjoying the sun in fact this year there’s been so much sun that well I got a little bit behind on a few things important things and the main thing I got behind on is the full defoliation of all my tiger bark fuses especially this big one here which is featured in videos throughout my time on YouTube and uh has had many changes many of you who go back to 2022 will remember there was a great big branch that came all the way out here probably out this far i removed that and it is in fact sitting somewhere just over there not sure sure we’ll look at it today but we’ve got to be considering how the wound healing is going on this one and uh it’s actually a really good example of what we talk about with that sort of that tire rollover we’re also going to be uh considering the fact the reason and the main reason now is a great time for doing a full defoliation is because these leaves all of them if you look at the different colors and hues on them represent the growth mainly that has occurred indoors and as a result of that he’s most definitely not up to dealing with the direct sunlight that we get here in uh the UK which is enjoying blistering temperatures of nearly 22° C i don’t know how we survived that sort of weather but on a serious note you can see that um there’s clear um discolor there’s clear discoloration of a lot of the leaves some of them have already started to fall and drop and when you see those signs you know that the tree is eventually going to drop those leaves so what we really want to do is get rid of all of those indoor leaves and get the tree to use all that energy that it’s gained from that to push out a whole new set which will be hardened to the harsh UK sun and everyone who’s out there knows I’m taking the mick a bit when I say harsh UK sun so we’re going to be doing a full defoliation or certainly 3/4 of it and yes I recognize that because I left it a week or so late there is actually some new leaf that has opened up can’t do much about that i’m going to cut it right back and as a result of that we’re also going to be looking at some of the basic principles we look at using that age-old practice of clip and grow and the reason why I make a point of saying clip and grow is there seems to be a little bit of a a divide in opinion seem to think that clip and grow is the only way to go or not and we get divided into these bonsai camps goodness knows why and I’m sure the majority of you don’t feel that way but sometimes when you read the comments on different videos there seems to be this anti-wire crusade campaign and clip and grow campaign well do you know what here in the Bonsai Retreat I really don’t care about any of that stuff i do what I think the tree needs but in this instance I um I fell back to the um tried and tested um proven techniques of Nigel Saunders and we all know him from the uh the bonsai zone and as you know the majority of his trees are done through the slow and painful sometimes process of clip and grow and he’s got some very very successful bonsai and back in 2023 I challenged myself to put the wire away on this tiger buck fus and just try and grow it naturally and I’m not going to lie to you it’s still it still is hard work i still want to pull some of these branches back with wire and shape them out into classic false shapes of a fus and uh I’m not going that way i’m going to stick with what I’ve promised so what we’re going to see today is how I approach clip and grow how I shorten things back to just one or two um prominent um branches or shoots that I want for the future and I recognize that ultimately this tree is going to want to grow that way and I’ve got to let it and then try and train these eyes and this brain to accept that that’s natural normal and beautiful for this particular tree but before we do I’m going to have a big shout out to my granddaughter Zita although she didn’t find me this little uh this little cook i do love that is making a a little flower um a flower pancake type thing but she did find me this little um bugs bunny to put on there and more importantly this lovely little rock that she found on the beach painted a little face on it i think it’s supposed to be in fact it is it’s a little spider on a rock so I’ve got to keep those safe for Zita and you know what i have no problem decorating my bonsai trees with whatever my children or indeed my grandchildren give me now as I mentioned the number one reason for doing folish now is because this is the winter coat and we’re going to remove it and as I showed you it’s because we’ve got discolored leaves if I’d done this a week or two earlier this really promising shoot we’ve got here wouldn’t now be opening up and yes I recognize that we’re going to be cutting it off but you know what looking at its location and where it is i’d be doing that anyway because if we look at it knowing now and accepting I’m not wiring it actually represents two branches from a junction that are vertically uh placed above each other vertically above vertically challenged I’m not sure so what I need to do is decide which ones are going well I know I’ve got to remove the browned off old foliage and if I look underneath there’s a little leaf down here well I actually think that might make a great new and I think having removed all that growth that’s going to push this leaf here to uh activate the node that’s under there and indeed hopefully another to come out from down here but either way that’s going to bring that down a little bit lower we all know with fus we get that um white um um waxy stuff coming up in fact it’s a it’s a rubbery type thing that will seal it on its own if you do this inside it’s messy uh and in fact if you’re doing it on your pot probably not a bad idea to just cover the pot and indeed the soil so we don’t get all that sap sitting on there so that’s the first of them and now I’m going to systematically go back and have a look i’m going to remove stubs uh we’ve got upward growth I don’t want so we’ve got that one that’s going to come outwards i’m going to cut it back even further we’ve got this branch structure here which again has got a leaf at the junction but it’s got some burnt leaves we’re going to have to get rid of those and indeed we’ve got here uh a leaf spur that I definitely don’t want so I’m going to remove that now I will leave some of the leaves on there what I ideally want is something to come out from just a little bit lower back here work out to this next one we can see the brown off leaf that will go have a look at the junction what have I got in that junction i’ve actually got I tend to remove any of the old leaves that are sitting behind the stalks or the new shoot so we’ve got one two so I’m going to get rid of one of the old leaves keep and keep one of the leaves get rid of that big old leaf there and then we’ve got this shoot here which is coming out quite a long way but there’s a brand new butt on it uh and I want to keep some of the life coming through the branch now I’m the first one to accept when it comes to actually describing the thought processes behind the clip and grow i think Nigel Saunders is the master of it he’s been doing for years and years and years and it’s really clear as he explains why and what he’s doing so I can sort of blunder around a bit talking about it i think one of the examples I’ll give here is of we’ve got the front of the trees here we’ve got this branch coming across which is going to come across eventually the trunk that’s no good so I’ve actually got to look at it and go back even further and I’ve got a leaf here i’ve got this potentially here but I’ve actually got something that’s right back here and maybe that’s what I actually want so I’m actually going to cut that all off i’m happy for the upward growth here and this by the look of it is all relatively new growth I think but I think actually I’m actually going to take that top off again what I want the tree to do is to go this way again here we’ve got the same issue here we’ve got this upward growth here which is going to be competing with this no good to anybody so we remove that and what I’ll be doing is slowly as you can see with all clip and grow and pruning certainly at this post flutch harden pruning stage to open up the tree to allow air light to get through in close so that we can get the back butdding in a lot closer to our primary and secondary branches it also allows us to have a look and see if we’ve got any nasty bugs building up and uh at the moment touching wood the only marks I’ve got on the inside of that is the uh calcium marks from the hard water if you go back and have a look at some of the earlier videos about this particular fus I kept saying I really don’t know whether I’m going to keep this branch or not and I still don’t know um the tree has has sort of got it there it’s um it’s not creating any adverse anything it’s just um it’s just odd what I don’t want though is this branch going up and across the front so what I’ll probably do is remove it entirely we’ve got a nice lower one here so I’ll remove this one as well again we’ve got something upward growing there so we’ll remove that and much smaller more uh less offensive to the eye perhaps until it finally decides whether or not it’s going to put energy into it so again we’ll be going through with this one i like this one because there’s a little branch here that I really like and the only way to encourage that to grow is to remove everything that’s going up so with that in mind I’m going to do quite a big cut and remove it all and uh and a lot of people say the reason why they don’t like this approach is because with wire I could have actually kept that material and put it into whichever position or location and continue to build the ramification and often what you’re finding with this clip and grow approach is that you’re taking two steps uh you’re taking one step forward and sometimes two steps backward every year and it often seems like the tree never ever goes anywhere well truthfully it does it goes in the right direction it just takes a lot longer but it does also mean that scars and wounds and stuff like that are a lot easier to hide they just do not happen the same way and uh I like it for that reason as well and looking at branches here just making sure that we don’t get any backward growth happening so I’ve removed a branch that was on the inside there knowing I had the one on the outside now the other thing I recognize is that sometimes this could be a pretty daunting task i’ve got all this massive foliage truthfully I look at the tree and think do you know what it looks pretty good and if I had it on my dining room table I’d probably think to myself do I really need to prune any of it back you know will it hurt the tree and truthfully removing all that thickness and just leaving it for a few small new shoots actually does wonders for the development and uh long-term health of your tree applies to most trees in the end trees love to put on foliage they love to grow out and all we’re doing is pulling them back and then allowing to do exactly the same thing again just hopefully in a slightly better direction now if you are a bit uncertain where to start have a look at the profile of your tree and just look for anything that is beyond it and I think here is the perfect example the profile means the end comes to the air so I can already look at that and despite the fact that it’s got lovely health and vigor it’s got a growing tip there which ideally you’d want to leave to let it grow on but it’s already too long so we go back we have a look at it we say to ourselves where’s the first point I can go back and actually do something with i’m going to remove that top growing one i’ve got leaf under there and I’ve also got chute points here i’ve got a little chute just there so I’ll remove that leaf and I’m going to cut that all the way off remove that leaf few leaves around i’ll get rid of as well there’s another upward growth there which I really don’t want so I’m actually going to remove that and uh just remove that old leaf there and that now has redefined the new growing the new growing strategy for that particular branch and it’s also brought it back in a lot closer and allows me to look at the potential ramification points that I’ve got in there and ideally I could even look at this and go that’s going upwards i may actually want the taper where it’s getting narrower just there yes I’m taking off a lot of material but the tree will really really benefit from it and in fact before I go off and completely and utterly change the way this looks go wind’s picking up i’ll uh I’ll show you one more example let’s go to the top shall we we’ve got this area here which has got a lot of healthy growth but it’s also getting thicker and if we look here so we’ve got the one branch going up divides into two divides into two divides into two into two into two all of these I’ve got dividing into two but what I can do we’ve got this branch here it’s going to go across well we don’t want that we’ve got a leaf that’s coming from the junction and that was the original point where the buds took off from and then we look at the length of this one two three i’m going to cut it right back to just two or three buds take rid of the old leaves just leave a few on there and that’s that i’m going to do the same here got a an old leaf there we’ve got some nice budding in there I like so I’m going to cut this great big thing here off there so now when we look at it much more delineated defined and the new healthy buds will come out from those points yes I’ve still left a few leaves on there but I can also clearly see if there are any insects or bugs at all okay well there you go and you know there’s got to be at least 50% of you going “No no you can’t take that much off.” Well do you know what i’ve done this time and time again and yes you can and although right now you look at it and go it doesn’t even look like a tree trust me give it another six weeks and this will have lots of more growth coming outwards outwards and what I’ve done is by doing this I’ve removed all the upward growth or the stuff that was growing in towards the tree and I know you’re saying “Yes that happens naturally.” Well when I start getting out to the finer tertiary branching maybe I’m happy with that but right now I’m still trying to build i’m not happy with some of these big long branches and I know what Nigel would say he’d say “Zav cut them right back or cut them halfway.” These do backbud on bare wood but not always so you’ve got to be careful so yes this great big long length here you could say there’s just nothing growing there well one of the ways I can get stuff growing there is by doing a radical prune here that may promote backing lower down um or indeed I may just cut the entire branch it’s it’s a tough one um I’ve done both both have worked but I’ve also done it and they failed so but from my experience I know that they do still send out shoots lower down just for no apparent reason to be honest so I will keep watching it’s happened here this branch here I’ve got this little chute that’s right lower down here that shoot if it’s allowed to get a bit stronger could be the reason that I eventually cut this entire branch structure above it off so uh there you go that’s clip and grow the Nigel Saers approach with my tiger bark fus and uh I like it you know I can see I can see what’s happening with this um the only terms of afterare clearly we’re going to have lots of new stuff coming out it will be in a slightly shaded spot for a while but once that new growth comes out it’ll be hardened and ready for that harsh summer sun which we’re going to get although I will say with these I tend to keep them in a shady spot so they don’t get the midday noon sun or we might even get to temperatures get ready for this up in the high 20s i don’t know how life succeeds in those sort of temperatures goodness now I know that I haven’t made mention of everyone’s favorite word cutings tiger bark fers well any fers really do well I could just throw that on concrete and it would probably root well no it wouldn’t um remove the bottom leaves got just a little pair there i could even just leave it to that and just plunk it in any sort of soil i don’t put rooting hormone um I don’t take any special care they’re actually fine they root really well i mean they really are brilliant for cutings off quite thick wood i know people who could cut great big hunks like this or that branch off or indeed that branch here and have something like that grow from it so they really are ideal if you’re looking to increase your uh your collection of fcus or fus or whatever now with the the root on rock it’s an entirely different ballpark i’ve actually wired this out looking at the wire I’m probably just going to need to uh remove that because I think we’re just starting to get a little bit of um wire bite on that branch there so let’s just remove that now just to be sure that we’re not going to irretrievably destroy what looks like will be a really nice tree and there’s just a light marking there so great time to get it off um we had another look at it last year in 2024 and I think I found out that only one half of the root was on the rock so I’ve put it back on and uh just see how we’re going on so the key with that it’s still developing so we actually want all this foliage growth so unless there are any places where we’ve got threes or fours develop developing from a single point I’m actually going to allow this to continue to grow out i think the only thing I do notice is just on a few no no actually it’s looking relatively clear so no wafers and such what I will do is have a look under the foil and see just sort of what sort of development we’ve got going i use the foil cuz it helps stopping algae growing same reason you would do it for an air layer if you look down here there’s a little white root so there’s definitely roots that have been growing now do I have to take this off right now well truthfully no but I’m a great one for certainly on fast growing species where the roots grow really rapidly to try and just have a look because as I’ve discovered if um there hasn’t been the sort of growth or the the root clinging as we want then uh it’s often easier to to reapply it i think I tried to put a root down there actually anyway that cling film’s not doing any good to anybody pull that out and uh I think it was down there I wanted the roots okay well what I’ll say is I’m shaking it and it’s not moving off the rock i’m not going to remove the spagnum i’m just going to tip that root under little root that’s there so we continue to keep it covered yeah there it is it’s definitely on the rock now so uh we’re going to continue to let that grow and let’s just have a look and see looks like it’s growing absolutely out of the rock quite incredible really so I’m really encouraged that that’s uh on the rock and uh as I say I’m not going to remove that spagnum spagnum spagnuminum um well I am just double checking to make sure we haven’t got any scale insects i find scale insects are the big thing with um the fus and you’ll see them all up the insides of shoots if you’ve got them but at the moment they seem relatively clear so maybe I’ll just get rid of a few leaves and just take that top off and that one there just a side branch there developing and a big leaf there obviously don’t want that leaf there stub stub there big leaf that’s been eaten with a stub so we’ll get something developing out this way which means we really want to take that top off actually and really we don’t want that going that way okay so we don’t want that branch there everything can grow that way that’s fine you know I’m going to end up removing most of this don’t you i still So we’ve got growing tips here i What I want to do I’m quite happy to let this big one grow out but I probably want to start taking advantage of the fact that we’ve got little shoots down here and let them grow out the little shoots same applies here actually we’ve got a a nice branch here so we want to cut that one back so that we can see such that lovely branch and again we don’t want that growing up across the main one so let’s just pull it back leaf there we might as well get rid of that it is really important to get and look in close you’ll know those little scale insects on your fus they’re really obvious you want to get rid of the first side of them spray it down soap and water solution or indeed whatever commercial thing you want to use also spiders like to get under there as well so I’m happy that I’ve got lots of shoots ready to explode on this so in truth that’s going to give the energy I need for that one i think that is developing really really nicely you tell me in the comments though which brings us along to this um third subject and that was the um the fus forest that I put together not because I was doing fusers but because I was doing I think actually it was in February uh this year when I did five things you need to consider before selecting or progressing and moving forward with a tree as a bonsai and we discussed various different important things from taper to trunks narrow goodness knows it’s a great video in fact there you go have a look at that did that back in February but as a side product I put together this um forest from the trees that I discussed as to why they wouldn’t make good individual trees and I think I even put a little cutting in here which is still got some lovely little shoots just there so the little cutting that just poked in as I said earlier they really do root very very easily i mean if you look how this one has buttered profusely at the lower part of the trunk it’s done that in response to the fact that I pruned it so heavily when I first put this together so that’s what I’m looking to happen when I’ve got longer branches on that first big tree that is a little bit devoid of um any secondary structure lower down the trunks or lower down the branches so they do bud back from uh from wood a lot lower down I think so long we’ve got some uh life in the trunk itself but anyway um in terms of how I’m going to treat this well I’m going to treat it exactly the same as I’ve treated all the others in this instance uh again looking to make sure we haven’t got any bugs or infestations uh removing where we’ve got threes or fours at the same point and indeed where we have got in this instance lots of little buds lower down i don’t want those little buds so I’m going to remove them so the tree directs energy up here where I want it but there it is now we’ll have a look and see what it looks like in uh just a few moments shall we and uh there it is we’re going to have to stop in a minute the sun’s just about to come over the midday arc which uh it’s why I’ve got this uh sleeve jumper on otherwise my skin just erupts into red welts but as you can see cut right back remove lots of little growths off the main trunks all of these are really really holding solidly in the soil so what’s that it’s been in there for 4 months and this is really really starting to uh root well um that was the little cutting there as well that’s got lots of little buds on it and overall I’m really really happy with how this little forest group is developing and I think this is going to look fantastic in a couple of years time same thing i did did find just one or two little scale insects on there so you know just cuz you don’t see them doesn’t mean they’re not there which leaves us with the last of the uh the fus that I want to discuss today and that’s all because of that short which I never ever expected to be my most popular video and my most divisive incredible the way people reacted to it and I’m going to say now there is no right or wrong answer when we make personal choices about whether to remove major branches but I still believe the decision I made was based on sound principles so let’s go and have a look and see just how it’s looking now here it is and uh look I think it looks really good yes I can see the place that I did the chop um no we haven’t had another branch come up to replace it but that wasn’t the intention i’m looking for branches here and here to slowly fill in that area it’s given it a lot more space it’s also stopped quite a big inversy taper problem and I know loads of people are saying that’s not a problem Zav but for me it was and finally the actual short was called I took your advice because when I showed this on a pruning video all those years back loads of people told me you’ve got to get rid of it and you know sometimes I do actually listen to your advice cuz I think you’re right and uh there’s only one thing I thought to myself about how I could improve this cuz many of you saying “What’s the rock doing?” Well actually what that rock reminded me is that I may actually do a repot and go for something just a little bit more like that now I don’t know how it’s going to set up on the roots and could I try that repot now and the answer is yeah I could do that repot now so that could be the way I’ll go with that something on that sort of angle or perhaps a little bit less but do you know what i think as an ongoing development that’s not too bad now all I need to do is prune it again okay well there it is i’ve taken all the way back and sometimes it’d be really difficult to see the difference that’s still a big space but right now you’re probably seeing it in a different angle how I envisionage it i’ve cut it right back because I still want further budding from closer in which I can see in different spots I’m going to get now I said to you that whether you like it or not it doesn’t really matter um I like it i love the challenge and learning just how fers react to different sorts of pruning you know it cost me £8 10 years ago something like that 15 years ago half the size i’ve had a lot of fun with it and I’m going to say that to you now about bonsai it’s got to be fun you’ve got to enjoy it if you don’t enjoy it well you wouldn’t be doing I suppose bit too logical now I keep telling you I don’t need any more indoor trees well I’ve taken a couple of um branch cutings which I removed I think from up here somewhere took off great big one at the top just going to poke that in the soil nice and deep and I’ve also got another one here which I’ll just neaten up just a weeny bit that’s it there and again I’ll poke that in nice and deeply in the potting mix and uh who knows hopefully well probably not hopefully but we’re likely to get a twin trunk and also another single um tiger bike fus from those so I’ll let you know how they get on probably sometime next year so this still has a very very long way to go but it’s been lots of fun i’ve been enjoying the journey and most of all that has enabled me through that short to pick up another 150 subscribers one of the primary reasons I do shorts is it’s another way for people to find my stuff cuz YouTube doesn’t necessarily put it where I want it and uh it also is a way for me to just flag to you that I might be doing a particular technique right now so if you see something about pine you know that I’ve probably just done it and it may still be another week or two before you see the video anyway enough of that um hopefully you’ve enjoyed this little um foray back into tiger bark fus and why it’s so important to prune hard once you bring them back outdoors um that’s a fantastic video to remind you of where that that um ficus started its life a long long time ago apart from that enjoy the sun enjoy bonsai all the best happy bonsai and God bless cheers [Music] hello [Music]