Defoliate Bonsai Ficus

Reasons to defoliate your bonsai tree.

Defoliate bonsai ficus. This is my favourite ficus bonsai. The technique is used to reduce the leaf size thus making the replacement leaves smaller and in better scale to the tree s. Pruning leaves to induce a new flush of growth. The primary reason bonsai hobbyists defoliate is to increase the branching out of the tree which is known as ramification.

Bonsai defoliation involves cutting all the leaves of a tree during the summer. This technique should only be used on deciduous trees healthy enough to withstand this demanding technique. Secondly defoliating is believed to produce better fall colors in deciduous trees. This can be done in one of two ways.

I bought it in 2005 as a small under developed and somewhat underwhelming stock tree that someone was getting rid of for 20. Once you decided on the technique that suites your application best you can move on to defoliated the tree. Since then it has developed in size and shape quite nicely. Defoliation is the removal of the leaves from a tree.

In doing so you force the tree to grow new leaves leading to a reduction in the size of leaves and an increase in ramification. Additionally removing larger leaves allows light to penetrate areas that were shaded before. You could use a pair of scissors or you could individually remove the leaves by hand.