Growing ficus religiosa and benghalensis from seed in cooler climates

I have had much success with growing ficus macrophylla from seed. The weather here in Los Angeles is warm enough to germinate the seeds. The seeds grow even better during one of our many heat waves during the summer (here is the link http://bonsai-misadventures.blogspot.com/2016/03/grow-fig-tree-from-seed-moreton-bay.html).

Los Angeles is many things both good and bad, but it is not hot enough to germinate Ficus religiosa the bodhi tree and Ficus benghalensis the Indian banyan. I have had success  growing each on two different attempts. The first, I put some dirt in a thin plastic ferrero rocher box. It was very shallow and I left it on the window sill when I lived in Pomona. Pomona is 50 miles from the ocean and is much hotter than where I grew up and now currently live, Inglewood. During a very hot heatwave near 100f I noticed that all the f benghalensis seeds had sprouted. It looked like a carpet of microgreens. I was happy and if I had known then that I was not going to germinate that ficus again I would have taken better care of them. I lost them all.

Last year I tried my hand a Ficus religiosa. I used a heat lamp to grow those. It did work. It was not a carpet like the indian banyan, but I took what I can get. My mistake was removing them from the heat too quickly. I lost them all.

So here we are. It's 2018 and I have goals and aspirations. I want to raise a forest of banyans and bodhis.

First things first: SOIL. Oh yes start the controversy.

I am going to grow these seeds in a plastic shoe box. There will be zero drainage.

I started with good ole peat.

I added vermiculite for texture.

Then I added fine volcanic cinder for more texture.

I mixed it all very well. Then I got my shoe box. I chose this to keep humidity high, but I will have to monitor moisture levels. Because there is no drainage I will have to mist.

Here is the box with the soil in it.

These are the seeds.

Here are the seeds on top of the soil.

And here is the first misting.

Los Angeles is to cold for germinating tropical ficus seeds. so I got this:

I bought this heat pad to boost the temp. It was setup in a corner of the kitchen. A Styrofoam sheet was placed underneath to conserve heat.

I pushed it and forced three shoe boxes on the heating pad.

Three days after the setup was completed I was pondering on whether the seeds needed UV to germinate. I went to check the boxes and discovered a lone plant growing. I thought that it might be a weed, though the leaves did look like a ficus (looked like most dicotyleodn sprouts).

Then I noticed it wasn't alone, and that there was a very small one that was just the size of ficus seeds. I was satisfied.

I have been obsessing about Indian Banyan since I started my bonasi journey. I am satisfied with my experiment up to this point. Cheers.

Rock over root planting

Do you like to grow things? Do you like rocks? Let me show you something. At the bonsai club that I joined last year, they have a raffle at the end of the meeting. One meeting I won a carved rock. I knew what it was for but I had no interest in rock plantings.  Some months later I remembered this nice Chinese elm from the National Bonsai Museum. I thought it was a very interesting piece.

I thought why not? Why can’t I make one of those?

I grabbed the rock, three Ficus macrophylla trees, some black lava rock, perlite, and composted dirt. I mixed it all together and put it in an Ikea pot.

I Imagined the way I wanted the trees to grow and placed the trees accordingly. Then I added a bit more dirt.

That's all I am going to do until mid-March. I want the roots to grow. That will anchor the trees. Then and only then will I start positioning the trees exactly how I want them.

The rock is buried deep enough to be able to stand on its own. It will be interesting to see how this project will develop. Go forth and rock out. Cheers.

Update 04/28/2017

I gave the ficus' time to grow some roots. New leaves are coming in so it is a good time to start phase II. What I want is for the trees to follow the contours of the rock, and for the tree's trunk to grow and brace itself on the cracks. The problem is that whatever I use to bind the trees with will only hold to the peaks of the rock and not the valleys. It's in the valleys that I want the trees to grow. What I did was add pieces of foam over the tree until it became a peak and was held by the raffia. I am thinking of reinforcing the raffia with some wire.

I will wait to see how thick the trunks get before I think of pruning the trees. Why would I prune the trees? to make it grow branches, of course ;). Cheers.

Update: Feb. 13, 2018
The trees grew to about a foot and a half. I added a little curve to a couple of them. I was happy with the trunk thickness to rock ratio. So, to promote branches I chopped off the tops. Four weeks later buds started to pop out. These I will let grow for another year before I chop them. I will wire the branches for shape before the chop.

Grow a fig tree from seed, Moreton bay ficus, Ficus macrophylla

Disclaimer: the Moreton bay fig tree should not be planted in the ground. This tree is very aggressive and its roots can cause a lot of damage. Santa Barbara has a huge one: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moreton_Bay_Fig_Tree_(Santa_Barbara,_California). I won't let it get that big you say? The roots of young trees damage pipes, concrete, etc. Do not risk it unless you have half an acre of land you want to donate to a future giant. Ficus macrophylla is a banyan ficus which means that they grow as epiphytes on other trees. Figs need fig wasps to reproduce. what happens is that the tree produces a little ball with a hole in it. then a pregnant wasp comes in and lays its eggs. When the wasp pushes her way in the fig it pollinates the new fig. There's another kind of fig wasp that comes and lays eggs and they eat the first kind of wasp. so if you love eating FIGS this is the way that figs get pollinated, because if you ever notice a fig doesn't have flowers on the tree. All the flowers are on the inside of that little ball.

This is the tree that I collected the figs from. Most of the figs are not ripe, but by next week the floors are going to be littered with purple little balls. I found a handful of ripe Figs. Birds love to eat these figs. last year I tasted it and it tastes almost exactly like the figs that we normally eat. However, they are dry, have big hard seeds. They are not really for human consumption unless you have nothing else to eat.

The place where I work opened in 1905. I don't believe that this fig is that old because the one in Santa Barbara is huge in its maybe 15 years older than where I work. So, maybe this one was planted in the forties or fifties.

Here you can see the typical look of the Moreton Bay fig with the spear-like leaves and tight clusters of figs.

I only found a few figs on the floor. Most of them are still green. These were probably knocked down by birds from the canopy of the tree. 

This is all I found at this moment but next week I'll be stepping on hundreds of them.

Here's a close-up of a Moreton Bay Fig. I think it's quite beautiful.

What you need to do to separate the seeds from the flesh. Get a bottle with a lid, some hydrogen peroxide, and then later we'll be adding some water. The hydrogen peroxide that they sell at the pharmacy is pretty weak but its strong enough to break some of the sugars into water and carbon dioxide. 

So, first split the figs in half and then scoop out the flesh and seeds and put them inside the bottle.

This is where you add the hydrogen peroxide. you are going to add enough to make a soft slurry. Close the bottle up and shake as hard as you can. The key is to separate all the fleshy stuff and the sugars from the seeds.

After you shake the hydrogen peroxide add plenty of water. After you add the water pour some of it out, keep adding water until it becomes nice and clear. All the good seeds will have sunk to the bottom so don't worry about losing any of the good seeds unless you pour out all the water. 

For the potting mix, I used potting soil mixed with about 40% sand. A mistake that I made last year which led to me losing all of my seedlings was that I planted them in a super shallow container. Maybe it was an inch or an inch and a half deep. My plants had grown a good 6 inches tall. They look like a little forest, but the dirt was so shallow that the roots dried out very easily and that's how I lost them.

I poured the water with the seeds right into the soil. Some of the seeds stuck to the bottle so I had to add more water and pour it in again.

On top, I added a fine mixture of turface and sand and volcanic rock and fine organic matter.

To finish everything off I wet the pot thoroughly. then I added these bamboo skewers, I am going to put a plastic bag on it and tie it with a rubber band.  This will make a mini greenhouse that'll keep everything nice and humid and extra warm. Warmth is essential for the seeds to germinate.

That's it for preparing seeds for germination. Now all you have to do is sit back relax and keep the dirt nice and moist. Cheers.

Update: March 25  

They are here in time for Easter. 23 days after they were planted the Ficus Macrophylla popped out to greet the world. Hopefully, I will have a forest of seedlings carpeting the pot soon.

Update: May 19

The seedlings are two months old. They are much bigger and have their first pair of true leaves. 

Update: June 22

Growth continues to be steady for these seedlings

Add caption

Update July 4

I decided that it was time to separate some of the small ficusses and let them grow individually

Now we'll see how resilient ficus macrophylla is, will they survive?

Update August 10

Here are the seedlings. The trunks are lignafyjng. 

Update November 29

I finally got around to separating the ficus macrophylla seedlings. They are three months shy of a year. These are from the original planting and are not the plants I separated above. 

Ficus Macrophylla Seedlings

The trunks are almost as thick as my pinky. That's very good growth for one year considering they grew from seed. I put each in individual pots. My plan for the ficus is to fertilize every week in the spring and every other week in the summer. Growth should be amazing. I will try growing F. benghalensis, and F. religiosa next year.

September 19/2017

I planted more seeds this year. Most pots had small ficus growing. A few pots did not. We had a heat wave a couple of weeks ago. I noticed that after the heat wave the ficus started to germinate. Warmth is definitely a factor in germinating ficus seeds. The seeds in both of these pots were planted at the same time. The heat made the seeds on the right germinate.