My Amazing Golden Gate Ficus Collection: Introduction

My Golden Gate Ficus collection is probably my favorite group of trees. They are ridiculously easy to care for and show explosive growth year-round. Originally, I started with just one of these trees and now I have five. Because I have so many, I have the option to make a forest grouping with these trees. I don’t think I will group them together anytime soon but, maybe sometime in the future.

The Collection

Large Golden Gate Ficus

My very first bonsai tree was a Golden Gate Ficus. When it arrived, it had upwards of twenty leaves on it and a nice “S” shaped trunk. It was a very cute little tree. I have been training this tree for a little over two years now. Within that time, it has done nothing but grow. Besides the few moves this plant went through, it has had no issues at all and is one of my favorite trees. In the pictures below you can see the changes in its growth over time. Every time I cut back a few leaves on this tree, multiple more grow back and sometimes even branches too.

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Medium Cuttings

Over the two years that I’ve owned this tree, I have taken a total of five cuttings from it. Of those five cuttings, three of them were a nice medium size. By medium size, I mean that they are too big to classify them as small and not large enough to be considered a nice specimen. I have so many tiny seedlings and other cuttings that I just cannot consider these cuttings as small. I hope that doesn’t cause too much confusion but going forward, I will refer to these three cuttings as the medium Golden Fate Ficus trees.

The first of the medium cuttings that I took was a skinny branch that had two thin offshoots along with two large leaves. At the top of the cutting, there were three small leaves with a bud of new growth at the center. I used rooting hormone at the base of the cutting when I planted it. It only took a few weeks for it to root and start showing signs of new growth. Since then, I have trimmed off the large leaves and the cutting has grown two new branches along the base of the trunk and a set of new leaves at the top. I have been very satisfied with this cutting so far and I hope it continues to develop without any problems.

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The second of the medium cutting I took is my favorite cutting. It’s a little bit larger than the first one and required me to cut a large portion off of the main tree. I was a little apprehensive that the cutting would root because the trunk was so thick where I had cut it. Nevertheless, good ol’ root hormone did the trick, and this cutting rooted in no time. Since then, it has shown lots of canopy growth and has lots of potential for designs. To make this tree extra special, I planted it in a pot I purchased in Hong Kong during my recent travels there. The pot is spectacular with its mountainous artwork and round shape. In addition, the cutting fits perfectly in the middle, and its branches sprawl out to cover the entire pot.

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The final medium-sized cutting was taken off of the tree pictured above. The second cutting had an awkward branch on it that was decently sized, so I decided to cut it off and have yet another tree. I really like how many leaves this cutting has. Despite the full canopy, the trunk on this tree is very thin. I am using fertilizer and a very lax pruning routine to try to beef its trunk up.

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Small Cuttings

Originally, I had two small Golden Gate Ficus cuttings. I took both of these cuttings the same day off of the large tree. They were both developing at the same rate. They rooted at the same time and even grew new leaves in sync. Due to unknown reasons, one of them died fairly quickly after it rooted though. To date, this is my only failed cutting! The surviving cutting has grown very slowly had has only produced one new leaf. Despite its slow growth, I still am holding on to hope that it starts to take off soon. You can see the cutting that died in the first picture below. It is at the forefront of the picture.

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If you want to learn more about how to care for a Golden Gate Ficus tree check out the care guide. This has just been an introduction to my Golden Gate Ficus collection. Stay tuned for more posts about my Golden Gate Ficus collection and more coming soon! You can find all these pictures and more in the Gallery. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to post notifications!