BIG BEN...a photo essay.

Dale Cochoy

While at the Florida convention over the 4th of July I got this huge Ficus Benjamina "STUMP" from my good friend Mike Cartrett ( BTW, Mike is one of the BEST sources for great priced stock in Florida. He is from West Palm Beach).
This was a Hurricane rescue from last year, sawed out of someones yard after being ripped to pieces and the stump was picked up by Mike and tossed into a mica pot. ( P.S. I think I saw this laying in someones yard near his home while visiting him last october, told him I saw it, and he went back and got it! )
When I got it Mike said I'd flip when I saw the sawed rootbase with a ring of roots about 1 1/2" thick running around it.
I decided to start on it this week. Unfortunately, in my "non-thinking-ahead" mode I got excited and pulled it out of the pot, raked out the roots ( WOW!, He was right!) and soaked a day in a vat of superthrive while I located a large shallow pot. ( BTW, I DO use superthrive when soaking rough stock before potting) Then potted and started to cut back and rip off some of the rotted old wood.
I found about 25 old marbles in the rootball when I raked it out. I wonder if they are a "collectable" age?
Anyway, what you see here is "Big Ben" ready for step two,....CARVING!!!.
I cut back foliage to about 10% of what I had in suckers popping out, chose branches I'll PROBABLY use and used some big root cutters to rip dead wood away until I got down to Carving range.
After I wait a few weeks for recoup time here in Ohio ( Man it's hot and humid, just perfect for this job!) I'll carve it out and disquise the carving as best I can with coloration ( see other photo essay) and then I'll do a first wiring.
After I came to my senses I took these shots.
First shot shows the PROBABLY future FRONT and all the cut off foliage and ripped off rotted wood.
Second shot shows probably future BACK and the mica pot Mike had it in.

More to come in a few weeks.
Sorry about the lack of "before" shots. I wish I'd taken one of the rootbase. Just imagoe the rootbase I showed on my last photo essay of a benjamina and multiply size by 10!

Dale

Attached Images

	Benny1.jpg (69.8 KB, 307 views)
	Benny2.jpg (69.8 KB, 199 views)
	Benny3.jpg (61.7 KB, 205 views)
	Benny4.jpg (64.4 KB, 190 views)

__________________
________________________________
If you want to be Different....
You have to DO something Different!
__________________________________________

Some people NEVER take the time to do a job right the first time....
but, they always seem to make the time to do it over again...
____________________________________________
Dale Cochoy
Wild Things Bonsai Studio
Yakimono no Kokoro Bonsai Pottery
Hartville, Ohio

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tuckerg

i take it the elephant this belonged to now has only three feet left .seriously,that it going to be one monster of a tree.excellent dale.

sauce

That is NICE!! Dale, does Mike have a web site or can you provide contact info? I live in a non-bonsai part of Fl. and purchase all of my trees on line so I'm always looking for new sellers.

Dale Cochoy

Sauce,
Mike doesn't have a website. Email me and I'll give you his contact. Nice guy, great prices.
Where do you live, city and area.. I'll bet I can find someone near.I can't hardly imagine a non-bonsai part of Florida, it seems like they have dealers falling over each other.Dale

__________________
________________________________
If you want to be Different....
You have to DO something Different!
__________________________________________

Some people NEVER take the time to do a job right the first time....
but, they always seem to make the time to do it over again...
____________________________________________
Dale Cochoy
Wild Things Bonsai Studio
Yakimono no Kokoro Bonsai Pottery
Hartville, Ohio

Newt

Great material!!! It pays to make friends huh!!!!

Newt

__________________
Opportunity must not be lost while the gods smile.
-Li Jing

Dale Cochoy

I thought I'd do a few preliminary measurements before styling.

Circumferance of trunk at soil level is 42"

Height before wiring from soil level is 31"

Length of pot across inside is 18 1/2". I had to look a bit to find a pot that rootbal BARELY fit in l & W and was a good depth for the shallow rootball. It coulda been more shallow but I'd rather not in Ohio.

Dale

__________________
________________________________
If you want to be Different....
You have to DO something Different!
__________________________________________

Some people NEVER take the time to do a job right the first time....
but, they always seem to make the time to do it over again...
____________________________________________
Dale Cochoy
Wild Things Bonsai Studio
Yakimono no Kokoro Bonsai Pottery
Hartville, Ohio

sauce

It doesn't look that large in the photos, that's huge. With some top growth and aerial roots that tree will look ancient! Good makings for a nice Banyan, if that is where you are going with it?

Dale Cochoy

"With some top growth and aerial roots that tree will look ancient! Good makings for a nice Banyan, if that is where you are going with it?"

Sauce,
Top growth won't be a problem, but I've never had a benjamina drop aerial roots in Ohio. The only thing I've ever gotten aerial roots to produce/survive on are arboricola. I always tell people, "if you want arial roots in Ohio, buy a tree with aerial roots!" such as the nerifolias and G.I. ficus I have/bring home from Florida. I always get the ones with the most aerial roots because you can't get them here unless you get lucky with the straw trick.
note: If you go to the "defoliated arboricola" thread you can see several roots on mine that were straw-drop-downs.
however,
you CAN pull existing branches down to the soil, strip leaves, and root them thereby creating a faux aerial root. That works fine if you get a sucker coming off the bottom of a branch, let it extend, and pull it straight down to soil.

BTW Sauce, If you live near north Tampa YOU ARE GONNA WANT TO GO TO BSF NEXT YEAR IN GAINSVILLE on Memorial Day weekend.

__________________
________________________________
If you want to be Different....
You have to DO something Different!
__________________________________________

Some people NEVER take the time to do a job right the first time....
but, they always seem to make the time to do it over again...
____________________________________________
Dale Cochoy
Wild Things Bonsai Studio
Yakimono no Kokoro Bonsai Pottery
Hartville, Ohio

Dale Cochoy

BIG BEN PHASE TWO!!!!

It's been over a week since my repot/cutback and nothing has died back. Good.
Now it's time to carve out the dead wood and saw spots and taper the trunk pieces.
It was 90 degrees and 87% humidity...a good day to work on a ficus.

My wife was home so she took some shots of me carving. All the work was done with a Makita die grinder using a Samurai, a Ninja, a couple different carbide burrs and a sanding flap wheel.

When doing a bunch of carving like this be sure to wear eye protection and a breathing mask.
It went excellent except for that couple seconds where a branch got caught in my sanding flap wheel and it wound it up real quick! and ripped it off the tree! Luckily it was just a small one!
I had to carve some live tissue away that I really didn't want to but needed to get a good taper between the large right side trunk carving and a healing over branch below it. I needed to re-wound and carve the healed torn off branch and run the carving together. You can see that partially healed branch hole in the early photos before I carved.
Everyone has different ideas about carving different types of trees. On some types ( and ficus is one) when I carve, and carve into an old healed area I always re-wound that edge of that area to induce further healing. Trident maples are another fgood tree to practice this on. NOTHING heals over like a trident and reinjuring a healed cut often helps it heal over more completely.
I also completely removed a partially healed large stub on the left side trunk.

Attached Images

	BigBena.jpg (58.9 KB, 85 views)
	BigBenb.jpg (67.0 KB, 95 views)
	BigBenc.jpg (63.1 KB, 101 views)
	BigBene.jpg (69.8 KB, 62 views)
	BigBend.jpg (68.1 KB, 64 views)
	BigBenf.jpg (68.2 KB, 154 views)

__________________
________________________________
If you want to be Different....
You have to DO something Different!
__________________________________________

Some people NEVER take the time to do a job right the first time....
but, they always seem to make the time to do it over again...
____________________________________________
Dale Cochoy
Wild Things Bonsai Studio
Yakimono no Kokoro Bonsai Pottery
Hartville, Ohio