You can save yourself time, and go to one of those nurseries that sell
braided-trunk figs, perhaps even with a golf ball laced into the trunk.
In other words, you can easily get fig trunks to fuse; the question is: is
it a good idea in bonsai?

Where are you located? If you're in Florida, you'll be able to get a giant
fig in no time, no cheating needed. If you live in Northern climes,
you'll find it easy to keep a fig alive, but difficult to get it to grow
into a bonsai.

My first worry is what species of fig you have: some figs will bud back,
others won't. You may have F. benjamina, which is a great tree for
shopping malls, but not a great tree to use as bonsai. If you top it, it
may not produce any branches lower down at all.

My next worry is what your tree would look like if you succeeded in fusing
the trunks. Many figs grow in "banyan" style, with aerial roots creating
additional vertical elements, but this is an airy growth pattern; out of
one tree, a jungle. Other figs are "stranglers"; they grow over a tree
and smother it. They look like a mass of fused snakes. What you are
suggesting des not resemble any normal fig growth pattern; it is a mallsai
pattern.

If I were you, I'd go to a good nursery and buy shorter figs of a species
well-suited to bonsai. Willow-leaf fig is a species that produces a fat
trunk even under northern, indoor growing conditions. Then I'd give it
plenty of light, keeping it outdoors as much as possible. Good luck!


I purchased a ficus at a grocery store recently. It was about 5 foot
tall and made up of about a dozen separate trunks about 1" think (or
less). I've cut the tree down to about 1 1/2 feet. I would like to see
if I can fuse the separate trunks into one or two thicker trunks by
wrapping them tightly with cable ties.

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