Common Fig: August 2024 repotting

Alright, strap in. This is going to be a big one.

The starting point

I’ve been bitching about the figs for a while. All I see are faults:

They are very short.
They grow big leaves.
They’re in a circular pot that doesn’t have a front.
There’s a lot of leggy branches that I can’t see well enough to maintain.
There’s four in a forest planting.

Mostly, they end up as a thicket of leaves with no bonsai nature.

We’re about to come out of winter, so I can even more see the problems.

And there’s some visitors from the kingdom down the road.

My starting plan was to put them in a line planting in this pot:

The trees are ready to bud, so now’s the time.

The depotting

Carefully removing the fungus, which don’t need roots.

Step one: let’s get them out of the pot.

Hmm… it turns out that this perlite/pumice mix was very hard.

…and that turned out to be because it was full of roots.

The pot has a inverse lip which made getting things out harder. I’d also put a large wire mesh down, which didn’t do me any favors. But eventually, the trees are out. And that’s when I realised they didn’t suit the pot at all. It’s a deep pot, which would be wasted on these small trees. I started casting around for what to do with them, and ended up putting them in four different pots.

Fig the First

Let’s take a look:

I wasn’t planning to take two identical photos from different angles; it just sort of happened.

The angle comes from the easy grasp of that long branch.

I actually like a lot of this. The trunk has some taper and branching. But there’s one big flaw.

Fortunately, I have a solution for that sort of problem.

With this cut, the tree is much more balanced. Extremely lacking in roots. But balanced.

I put this in a soil filled pot. I’m curious if roots alone will grow.

Now I have a plausibly interesting small tree. Let’s see where it fits.

I’m quite positive about this one. If is does grow, and if I could get the leaves to stay small, it could be quite striking.

Although that one long branch will have to go. Sooner rather than later.

EDIT: A week later:

Fig the Second

Ok, let’s take a look:

Roots going anywhere, leggy branches going to the sky. Blah.

Will it look better in a pot. Let’s try a fitting montage.

This one doesn’t suit my roots. My ugly, ungainly roots.

This is going to try for a semi cascasde.

It’s not a great pot for a cascade… too low, too square.

That’s ok, because it’s not a great tree for a cascade.

Honestly, I think I should be more ruthless and get rid of the tree. It’s not making anyone happy.

Fig the Third

Let’s take a look:

The roots are not terrible. And the top is certainly not lacking for movement. The tree is sufficiently bare that it looks like it could be used in a hanging in a gothic novel. That’s just winter – it will look different with leaves – but there’s some character there.

This is just a bit too big. But I have the same color in smaller and squarer.

I’ll hold judgement on this one to see how it grows.

Fig the fourth

Let’s take a look:

First Fix:

I think this is the same tree. Apparently, I decided to cut some stuff off.

This also would probably be better if I’d just thrown it away.

In closing…

Let’s have a family portrait.

Remember these were purchased in one pot. I thought it was one tree and was surprised they kept splitting. Let’s see how they’re doing by the end of summer. Because there’s always the other option.