bonsaiTALK Community - View Single Post - Two Trees for beginner: Ficus & Cupressus

Welcom Zarko,

The ficus is trainable. Please don't waste your time with the Cypress***. I have never seen a good one.

It's hard to see the trunk of your ficus, but if you can find two or three trunks in there with different thickeness you can remove the others (of identical thickness) and then we can work from there.

Triple trunks are much easier to develop than two trunk trees. With twin trunks the proportions and branch spacing and everything else becomes more critical.

If you have any choice in your trunk selection, the trunk with interesting shape or some amount of taper would take preference over a trunk that is dead straight with no taper.

Regards,

Matt

***This is true of most true Cypress, particularly Italian Cypress. The "cypress" that are good for bonsai are mostly the false cypress varieties. The foliage and branching characteristics of true Cypress make it very difficult to work with.

10-Aug-2002	#5
TreeBay Tips:5¢ Advice:Free *MODERATOR GROUP* Join Date: Aug-2001 Location: Silicon Valley Country: USA USDA Zone: 9 AHS Heat Zone: 4 Posts: 9,745	Welcom Zarko, The ficus is trainable. Please don't waste your time with the Cypress*. I have never seen a good one. It's hard to see the trunk of your ficus, but if you can find two or three trunks in there with different thickeness you can remove the others (of identical thickness) and then we can work from there. Triple trunks are much easier to develop than two trunk trees. With twin trunks the proportions and branch spacing and everything else becomes more critical. If you have any choice in your trunk selection, the trunk with interesting shape or some amount of taper would take preference over a trunk that is dead straight with no taper. Regards, Matt This is true of most true Cypress, particularly Italian Cypress. The "cypress" that are good for bonsai are mostly the false cypress varieties. The foliage and branching characteristics of true Cypress make it very difficult to work with. __________________ Want to be a seller on bonsaiAUCTIONS? Get authorized today!* bonsaiTALK: Over 100,005.36 Megabytes Served this Month!