The Ficus or Fig as Bonsai

The ficus is a very popular plant for bonsai and there are some where around 800 different species of these evergreen shrubs and trees and climbers that exist and they all are tropical and sub tropical.

The Ficus Retusa fig can make a wonderful bonsai if you simply take your time and work with this plant to get a shape and style going.

They are very tolerant of indoor growing conditions and will adept to most homes.

Most of our homes though have very poor humidity and unfortunately humidity is pretty much a necessity to the growing of ficus.

This is not to say that your fig will die or not live it simply will not grow as well or as fast if you subject it to less than the ideal conditions that they are used too.

The ideal conditions of course would be when you can provide lots of high humidity consistent watering and plenty of light.

Some things that you can do to improve the levels of humidity around your plant would be to keep it on a humidity tray and spray mist it regularly through out the day when ever possible. You might also try and pot some moss along in your pot to help retain moisture.

Some apartment dwellers may have a bathroom that does not have an outside window and If this is the case and you take a lot of showers and your bathroom steams up that’s great simply take along your fig and let it soak up all that wonderful humidity even if it is for a short while.

Since most of these type of plants are found on the jungle floor and the other taller tress block out a lot of the light they are fairly light tolerant and will adept to most indoor poor lighting conditions.

There are at least a dozen species of ficus and hundreds of varieties of figs within that species and of these there are many that can and will make a wonderful bonsai.

Try if at all possible to place your fig in a very high light condition even full sun will not harm your fig and by keeping a humidity tray filled with some small pea gravel under your plant you’ll only encourage it to grow faster and be healthier.

Of course misting will also be welcomed and you most likely couldn’t ever mist enough unless you had your bonsai all growing in a green house with a built in misting system. So you need not worry about over misting any of these plants as they all love it.

You will most likely need to repot your ficus at least every other year and feed it only during the growing season and never when it looks to be in poor health or during the winter months.

Ficus can be pruned during the spring although most will be tolerant of pruning year around as long as you’re not hard pruning and by hard pruning I mean taking a lot off of your plant.

Scale insects and mites can some times be a problem and should be watched for on your figs. Figs will leaf drop very fast if subjected to poor conditions such as over watering, or poor light, or drafts but if the conditions are improved your fig can leaf back in as little as 3 to 6 weeks.

Some of the varieties that make good bonsai are Ficus Salicifolia or willow leaf fig, the famous Ficus Benjamina of course and Ficus Retusa, or the Chinese banyan, and there is also a variety called the Green Island Fig which is also a variety of the Retusa.

Figs can se started from cuttings or seeds and of course air layering I prefer cuttings and have started most If not all of my figs in this manner.

Thanks, for reading and viewing.

©Copyright 2005 Harold Yearout All Rights Reserved
For more information feel free to Contact Me: