Someone wrote:


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.

Nina responded, in part:

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 add this chiding followup:

Folks, the grocery store is the ABSOLUTE LAST place you want to
shop in for plants (or even cut flowers, for that matter)!

In no particular order:

1. The light level in the average grocery store is very low (for
plants). Anything alive in the plant section will quickly go
poorly.

2. The grocery staff AT BEST are amateur gardeners; at worst,
they worked in produce last week and may do so again next week.

3. Plants in a grocery store will have arrived there in the most
circuitous manner possible; heaven only knows when, or even
where, they started out. They probably will not have seen the
sun for 2 weeks.

4. Would you buy a t-bone steak (or even a gallon of milk) at a
nursery?

5. Plants in a grocery store are an afterthought to the cut
flower department (always located near produce!) which itself is
there solely for spur-of-the-moment purchases for that dinner
party for the boss when the flowers don't have to last past that
one evening. (and don't)

You should buy food at a food store. Grocery stores these days
try to be all things for all people. In most cases they do this
badly (at best), carrying inferior products when they step
outside their normal range -- selling food. So, buy plants at a
plant store. Buy hardware at a hardware store. Etcetera.

(Note: They're not alone; you can buy food at most drugstores
these days.)

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - Our life is
frittered away by detail . . . . Simplify! Simplify. -- Henry
David Thoreau - Walden

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