Braaap...zai

[Going2fast]

Ok I have no idea here. Lol. So I was way too high and saw a Reddit thread where people grow bonzai weed. Of course there's a lot of art that goes into this and I've kinda done it to a 27 year old ficus I started as a twig. If you zoom in there's a piece of coral out of my old reef aquarium in the middle of the roots. So what I did was take the small ficus, wash all of the dirt off of the roots, drape them over the coral, then fill the remaining pot with dirt. Then over the years slowly wash the dirt away to reveal the roots without killing the plant. So basically bonsai is the same. Keeping a plant pissed off enough to stunt it but not enough to kill it. The ficus leaves have halved in size due to the years of stress.
So anyhoo enough rambling what they do here is the same thing I did in 27 years but in 75 days. So I got creative with my choice for pots. Years of racing I have a nice supply of tacoed rear fenders. Incidentally this color is called orange crush. It was a one off from Acerbis for Yamaha back in the early 2000s. I went with a Memphisto tester freebie for this debacle. This is (creme de la chem x 3 bears og)x creme de la chem. So this will be a lot of fun or a fiery crash and burn. Either way it will be entertaining. Hell it's winter folks let's get stupid.
The plan is to torture this thing into staying small and sexy. Please feel free to add advice or just brainstorming. Soil is same as the larger ladies . Compost in the fender. Miracle grow organics in the upside down planter.
Now the real question is what did I bury in the planter for the roots to grow around?

[Going2fast]

So I think so may be my crippling sentence filler word.
so what.

[crucialbunny]

I did some experimenting trying to hybridize miniature weed plants for bonsai purposes and unfortunately ended up this year with nothing but plants that were so small I couldn't do anything with them. I need to go back to square one I think. My advice would be to get some strains known for their small size like Royal Dwarf, Amnesia Haze, Critical Kush, or White Dwarf, and work from there. You don't need to limit yourself to 75 days because you can keep them going indefinitely with long light cycles. The plant in the pic is one I grew for seed stock 2 years ago and never did attempt to bonsai. The thumb sized buds from this were exceptional. One of the main problems with using "normal" strains is that it's extremely difficult to limit leaf size to produce the bonsai aesthetic. I'm really looking forward to see how your experiment moves ahead.

[Going2fast]

Man I do like the small leaves. What strain was that one?

[crucialbunny]

This particular plant was an Amnesia Haze and a smallish Super Glue male cross. Then I crossed this one with Royal Dwarf and the offspring were horrible mutants that had very gnarled branches that couldn't sustain the weight of any new growth. The one pictured grew beautiful thumb sized nuggets but I was unable to take any viable clones in order to use the colloidal silver method of getting pollen, so I ended up having to use the Royal Dwarf. I may start over this season.

[dilvish]

I got a mini growing right now...bad genetics but I'm letting it grow for the hell of it

[Gingerbeard]

5 years ago, a friend moved and gave me her 4' tall, 12 year old, indoor ficus when she moved. It was 6-1/2' tall when painters destroyed it with overspray. I had moved the plant outside to water and didn't know about the painters. I got 8 cuttings that are doing well. They got their cut ends dipped in a piece of aloe, then into coco/perlite and have been getting 1/2 strength the veg nutes I'm using on my weed.
The original plant was cut down to about two feet where there was a small mass of new growth. I might have to do some root washing to see if I can pull something like that off.
I've given away several cuttings from that plant, over the years. Best gifts you can gives are ones you make.

[Going2fast]

crucialbunny sorry I forgot to mention it's an auto seed so we are on the clock. Figured I might as well use strong genetics at least.

[Going2fast]

Gingerbeard yeah that's why I chose it. They are impossible to kill. After a nuclear war there's going to be nothing left but ficus, cockroaches, and Keith Richards.

[OldManGrower]

Don't forget tax assessors.

[Going2fast]

Twist me turn me bend me break me......

[homegrown]

Shouldn't be a problem Going2fast , just stay diligent on the LST..every little bit of growth, bend it and tie it down. You can make them to go in any direction you want as long as you do it while stems are young and flexible. I did 8 photos in my 6x3 tent last year using super heavy LST. I twisted each one into a pin wheel while keeping them in a flat surface for light penetration. Fantastic buds with no popcorn waste.

[Going2fast]

homegrown all over it buddy.

[Going2fast]

Let the punishment begin. Something I never do during veg.

[BU2B]

It will be interesting to see what you do. My camera auto tags photos - I always find it amusing when the tag goes from plant, plant, to bonsai.

[Going2fast]

Got some verigation going on.

[Going2fast]

I need to keep braapzai from growing sideways as mango and the girls are taking up all of the space. I'm literally turning mango inside out trying to keep her under control. So I went all edward scissor hand s on her. Here's some before.

[Going2fast]

And after. Please don't Hermie please don't Hermie.

[Going2fast]

Friday photo op. Showed me her lady parts yesterday. About 24 days I think. She did not like the trimming at all which is good.