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Wired Ramblings
by ozzerbon
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And now that you’ve applied the wires, are you confident and happy with the results of the composition? Does the chosen wire hold the stress of the bends and twistings, knowing only all too well that you’re going to have to look at your wiring for one helluva long period, or don’t you care about that? You know all too well that you’re gonna revisit this tree and add extra emphasis here and there, until (and only until) you can leave it to stand as it is, for the best part of the coming year.

Do you remove unwanted branches confidently, and do you seal those cuts, or maybe you hesitate?

So just how much time do you think about it, or even deeply dream, or maybe discuss it with someone you trust, or do you write to a group of friendly ‘strangers’ and seek their advice, like for instance those very helpful folk in this kind of ‘group’?

And what brought me to posing this enquiry?

Fig 5. Ficus carica Group
Well it’s a small ‘group’ type of planting of five Ficus caricas [see attached pic], all of which are Spanish imports. These five individual plants I found in one of two of my most favourite and local garden centres here, both about twenty minutes away by public transport from where I sit at this very moment.

This fruitful ancient species is such a lush and fast grower, and puts up an unbelievable amount of suckers [almost growing as you watch], and which I am loathe to cut away, but I am aware that needs must, and in the weeks ahead I’ll select a couple of suckers that I may let develop and add to the number of five, please note that one sucker has already been wired.

The five original [fruit bearing] trees all started out at being about 80cm [31 ½“] tall, and at present have been reduced way-down to 33cm [13“], that being the tallest of the five trees.

For my reference of this Ficus carica planting, the most interesting pics of this species from my vast collections , show a few trees growing in oval bowls of various depths. They appear at first sight, to be nothing other than heaps of down-sweeping and tumbling, Ficus carica leaves, so arranged, that the trees have been shaped into graceful weeping styled trees.

I’ve spent some months on studying these few pics, steadily warming to them, and now how logical it seems to be to me, that this style is the only one that might be applied [or perhaps not], due to the size of this beautiful and classic foliage.

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