It’s a Hard Rock life, for m’trees, it’s a Hard Rock life, for me

Carry on my wayward sons, or trees….or something like that.

Here I find myself in a hotel in Hollywood.

Florida, not the hotel in California. Where you can’t never leave.

I’m at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. It seems there’s a place way down south in the Everglades, where the black water rolls and the saw grass waves.
The eagles fly and the otters play in the land of the Seminole…

I could catch a show, eat a meal, go swimming, gamble and win (most likely lose). But they’re never gonna catch me cuz I have one more silver dollar.

I have some work to do. Takin’ care of business, so to say.

Or, tomorrow morning I have work to do.

Nightie night…..

Here comes the sun….

And the tree. A willow leaf fig. Ficus salicaria. What’s a more Florida tree than the one bonsai species that was first discovered here. And not too far from this place. The very first bonsai made from the willow leaf still exists and lives down on the east coast of La Florida. Very far from the Florida:Georgia line.

The tree came from Mike Blom, of Emblem Bonsai. He’s one of Florida’s best. He takes the time to develop the trunk and works to make the stock plant the best it can be. The pot is an early Taiko Earth container, by Rob Addonizio.

I didn’t bring any number one wire, so just the main branches will be wired.

They already have a strong upward bend so I’ll keep that movement and exaggerate it. An artistic concept we use in bonsai is the repetition of shape and line. This brings the character of the tree into a more honest representation of itself. The branches should tell a story. Say we have a mountain for or spruce in a place where winter dumps hundreds of pounds of snow on the trees and plants growing there. The branches tend to start growing down right from the trunk.

This tree, a purely tropical species, tends to want to grow up first.

Now, don’t get me wrong, we can style the willow leaf ficus as though they are conifers (in fact, here’s a post where I did just that: This is what happens when you leave a tree at my nursery)

I consider them one of the best species for bonsai mainly because they will, much like a juniper or Chinese elm, they can be made into almost all the styles. Cascade? Yeah. Upright formal? You bet. Windswept? If you want. Bunjin? Definitely.

And they grow and backbud like insanity in a tree. A trunk chop will result in buds right from the chop sight, usually double digit amounts. You can totally redesign one of these trees every ten years and the tree will thank you for the makeover. I’ve heard twice from returning westerners who’ve apprenticed in Japan that ficus in general just grow too fast for the Japanese masters.

Imagine that.

That’s one reason we in Florida tend to put them into bonsai pots when developing them, it slows the growth might so that we aren’t unwiring and then rewiring every week when it starts to cut in.

How’s that? I like it. It could have better taper….if it were a Hershey’s Kiss.

Some water…

Whoops, made a mess in the shower.

Now it just needs some sunshine. Let the sun shine….and you thought I ran out of song lyrics, didn’t you?

Now it’s breakfast time.

WAIT, WHAT? $32 dollars for two eggs and bacon….I thought casinos had cheap food?