The Decline ... A Benjamina Fig History by Dierk Neugebauer Almost 10 years ago now, I was entrusted with a nine foot tall benjamina fig by an elderly family friend, fondly know as Auntie Rose. This tree had been her prized possesssion for many, many years, and was the showpiece in her apartment. Alas, she felt that she could no longer look after her tree, and looked to my green thumb to step into the breach. The apartment's southern exposure, tall ceilings and floor to ceiling windows created an excellent environment for the tree to grow and prosper. It's trunk was a respectable 2 inches in diameter; its numerous foliage was full and glistening; and its 18 inch diameter pot was very, very heavy. Beside the trunk grew a younger tree that had been rooted a number of years ago from a cutting; its trunk had a diameter of about three quarters of an inch. I happily received the tree and managed to get it to my home where, ceilings were only 8 feet tall, except in the living room. Its new location offered ample headroom, but insufficient light. But it was a benjamina fig, after all, and those trees seem to thrive even in offices. For two or three years the tree looked healthy enough, though a little cramped in its new quarters in our living room. But then, gradually, as time progressed, it started to lose more leaves than it replaced, until I became quite concerned about its well-being. One spring day I decided that the problem needed to be addressed. The tree was unceremoniously hauled outside and removed from its large pot with great difficulty. How to remove what looked like a lot of clay! Finally the garden hose came to the rescue. I washed off most of the soil, removed the bottom half of the roots, decreased the diameter of the root ball by several inches, and then repotted the tree in a smaller, though still large pot. The potting mix was that largely soil-less material one buys in nurseries in the spring - lots of peat moss and a little perlite. I felt that such a mix should well suit a tropical tree such as mine. I kept the young companion tree and also pruned it to remain in proportion to the larger one. Once repotted, I also took advantage of being outside and removed a significant number of branches, so that the tree generally was about a third smaller than when I started. All went well for a while, but then lethargy once again set in. It was at this time that I became involved in the Toronto Bonsai Society by becoming a member - that was about five years ago. The new membership, the atmosphere of learning and sharing, and the great wealth of information that was readily tapped into, gave me the idea, after a while, that my benjamina could indeed become a bonsai. it just needed to shrink some. So the day came when I, armed with a 4 x 14 inch mica pot, my pruning clippers, saw and trusty garden hose, revisited the driveway, to see what magic could be wrought. I removed the dirt; I chopped the roots to fit into the pot, and I wired the beast into submission. Naturally, major pruning of both the "parent and child" accompanied these adventures. Two years passed once more. ... Reiner Goebel and John Biel gave their famous slide presentations ... one January evening, ... as we met at the Civic Garden Center. The focus I remembered most of all, was the episode that Reiner called his "trunk chop" method. It goes something like this: you might buy a tree with a nice trunk and roots at the nursery. After paying for it, you take out your saw, chop it off a couple of feet above the pot, throw out the top part, and go home with the bottom section. ... Then you grow a new tree.. The slides showed that there was merit in the process. That night we witnessed, and this Journal has since printed, Reiner's "trunk chop" method (Feb. 2001). That spring the tree and I once again headed to the driveway. And with saw in hand, I reduced both trees to 14 and 12 inch stumps devoid of both branches and leaves, in the firm belief that nature would run its course and sprout numerous, new branches everywhere, so that I could choose the ones most suitable to the trees' futures. I was ready for this "second coming," ... but ... would Auntie Rose have approved? ---------------------------------------------------- Return next month and learn what nature had planned for this benjamina fig!