Makin’ my way in the world today

The Orlando Japanese Festival, 2024.

Held every year in Kissimmee Florida…..

The Central Florida Bonsai Club, my club in Orlando, has been representing Florida Bonsai at this festival for several years now.

I like to go for the day and work one of my bigger trees to show the public that bonsai don’t need to be, or are limited to, small hand-held trees.

This year I brought a Ficus microcarpa. Just the plain species. Not tiger bark or green island or melon seed. Here’s how it looked after I cut it to a line way back in 2013.

I got the trunk from my good friend Ronn Miller, a Florida bonsai artist of great renown.

The link below shows a previous blog post on the tree:

https://adamaskwhy.com/2013/06/26/rejuvenating-a-ficus-bonsai-part-2/

What’s on the agenda for today?

Defoliation, unwiring (I think I did that already) and pruning for shape/taper/ramificatiom, and rewiring of course. But not every branch.

Sometimes that’s needed, wiring every branch, but most times it’s not. I had a former friend who insisted on wiring every branch because that’s how he learned (he watched a video on YouTube that told him to ALWAYS wire every branch, and he was a paid subscriber to this channel, so he obviously has to do what he’s told, cuz it’s worth more to him. I wish I had a simple mind like that. I have to question everything. Just last week I was tying my boots and I wondered if they’d be tighter if I used an overhand knot instead of a sideways, underneath knot. Took me 15 minutes to tie my boots…..

If you’re looking at the leaves closely, you’ll notice the white build up on some of them.

Like above. I see this question a lot on the bonsai forums: “What is this? Is it harmful? How do I get rid of it? “

It’s usually just water spots from dissolved solids in your water. Like calcium, or lime. If it’s red or orange, it’s iron rust. it’s not harmful acutely, just ugly, but it could be a problem if it’s built up so much that it blocks the sun and restricts photosynthesis. And how do you get rid of it? You can polish the leaf, or use leaf shine, or, like I’m doing, cut them off. A ficus can hold a leaf for up to three years (it’s a tropical, broadleaf evergreen). But you can defoliate one, as long as it’s healthy, up to four, five times a year. I usually do at least twice in my normal maintenance. If I’m really pushing a tree, 3-4 times.

Anyway, I have a bunch of leaves. Let’s see if I can count….

There we are. I counted 2,713 leaves.

Actually no, but that’s a good number. It’s a prime number (only divisible by itself) and sounds good saying it out loud

“two thousand seven hundred and thirteen”.

Sounds like it belongs in the first, or last, sentence in the Great American Novel:

“In the year two thousand, seven hundred and thirteen, the hero man was born.

Or died.

It was a time of illogic and lost tales, with many great humans born or killed. Some by the hands of evil men, or by their own hands as the era was one of pain.

The world had just gone through a bloody interregnum, accented by war and famine, city and states wiped off the countryside and built up into empire. Cultures distilled out of the quirks and pathology of a leader, or group.

Our hero begins the day chopping wood, collecting water, and making tea.”

I’d read that book. Maybe I’ll even have to write it.

Let me finish this post first. The branch my hand is on has risen from its original place in the design.

So that’ll need to be wired back down.

That’s the life of a ficus bonsai owner: put the wire on, take the wire off, put the wire on, take the wire off.

Anyway, enjoy the next twenty following pics of me pointing at various parts of the tree.

Straight lines must be made curly.

Some things gotta go.

I just realized that in the background of these pics, you’ll be seeing a pretty detailed accounting of certain attendees visiting the restroom.

Now for wire..

For the sake of a good anchor, one should try to wire two branches with one wire.

Always start in the branch crotch (I just learned that “crotch” is a word first used to describe the meeting of two branches, or the trunk and branch, and not the area between your legs).

And wire one side clockwise, and the other counter clockwise.

There’s a straight line that’s offending my eye.

I know I need to wire three branches. I’ll use two wires.

This will let me put two wires on some branches, to give better holding power.

Then the bend.

I usually use two hands to bend, but that’s hard to hold a camera, and bend. Pretend my left hand is steadying the branch.

There we go, one done.

Now for the rest

Zooming in, you’ll see wire marks. One of my favorite bonsai lines comes from an English man, he said “I’f’n you ain’t got no wire mahks, yer not using enough wire”.

Say that in a John Lennon accent.

Should you find yourself with too many wire marks, you can scrape off the ridges with a blade.

It mitigates them and makes the branch look gnarly.

And chicks dig scars.

And that’s it.

A video from the top

There’s just something satisfying in wheeling a tree around on a garden cart.

🎶Walk this way! 🎶

We all have to walk the path we see before us. Sometimes we cross others paths at the same time they’re on it, and sometimes those paths parallel each other. Relish those times of a companionship, but realize you can’t get off your own path.

Finito!