Anyway....this Schefflera is becoming kind of cumbersome as a houseplant, so I decided to do something about it. (Not to mention the poor thing hasn't been repotted in about 8 years-oops!)
Not nearly as rootbound as I expected. As you can see, I have three separate sections to work with....
....so let's start with the two big ones. I decided to try and weave them together to form a quasi-bonsai-looking houseplant "sculpture"...
....after fiddling with them for awhile, I came up with this....
.....held together at the trunk with some stretchy plant tape to maintain form.
I felt that it would be plenty content rather pot-bound, since it grew so large all crowded before. (Plus I'd like to try and keep it manageable.)
There! It still looks too large, and frankly scraggly too.....
.....time for a little "tough love"!
Presto! Hopefully the bare stubs will fill in and pretty it up, but I'm willing to sacrifice this specimen in the name of experimentation ;-)
I decided to expose some higher roots and wedge a couple decorative rocks underneath...
.....for another bonsai-ish element. Someday I'm going to try "real" bonsai again, but for now I'm content to amuse myself this way.
Our third subject will be potted up alone....
....and trimmed to sort-of represent a leaning bonsai form.
That was fun! Now what else can I bend to my will? :) (This took place a few months ago...more updates from last summer coming soon.)
Fast forward: Here is our main subject just the other day...not too shabby, eh?
6 comments:
What an interesting project. Looks successfull to me. I've had these plants in the past and they always way outgrew my spouses welcome in the living room. Tough love is what they needed I guess.
I'm not surprised that your plants were evicted, my mom had one that was akin to an indoor hedge! (It made a good room divider, though :) Eventually she grew tired of it and sold it at a garage sale-it took a pickup to haul it off!
Wow, that was some operation. I'm notorious for forgetting all about houseplants, because I'm always focused outside!
I usually manage to keep my house plants happy, it's the house WORK that gets neglected here! :)
Hi, I found your blog by way of Blotanical, wondered why I'd not seen you before, scrolled back to see you had been too 'deezy' to blog. Hope you're feeling much better and we'll see you often.
Renovating your schefflera was a huge undertaking, I hope it thrives from such tender care.
Thank you! I have been feeling better lately, but now I seem to have unemployment drama. Ah well, such is life, eh? :)
Post a Comment