I purchased this Ficus retusa microcarpa Kingman in 1998 when I visited Jim Smith's place in Vero Beach. Don't have an original photo though. Lost them on an old pc crash.
Turned around and sold it to a friend that had to have it. Oct. 31, 2004, he called and asked me to come get it because he had lost interest in bonsai. It was still in the dish pan he had potted it in when he brought it home. It had never been repotted and the soil was mush. Many of the major upper canopy branches had died and the tree looked like it was on it's last leg.
I took it out of the pan and repotted it in something a little deeper. Here it is April 12, 2005. I had pulled some of the branched down in the canopy to open it up a little trying to get a feel for what to do with it. It was pushing a lot of new growth and showing great signs of bouncing right back.
Studied it all winter trying to come up with a plan with what to do with it. I came to the conclusion I didn't like little skinny 2 foot long branches on a skinny tree with lots of air roots.
So I trunk chopped it at about 11 inches above the soil line and took off the air roots that were out in the perimeter of the plant. I also left a sacrifice branch on top of the chop.
I did a thread graft summer of 2006 and left it alone all year to fill out while I thought about what to do next. The graft will be the lower branch on the left side of the tree.
The weather this year was miserable. Record rainfall in our state's history meant no sun, terribly wet soil, and no working with the plant. We basically had 2 weeks of summer this year so I didn't do anything to the plant. With so much rain and no sun I wasn't going to feed it either so it just survived the year.
Here it is today. Sacrifice branch is about 38 inches above the soil line and the root spread is about 14 inches.
I still haven't really come up with a vision of it's future yet. I'm fairly sure I don't want it taller than about 28 inches, probably much shorter. Guess I've got fall and all winter to come up with a plan. Any ideas?