I started working on this tree nearly 20 years ago. It was a large Ficus salicaria, Willow leaf ficus, purchased from a Florida nursery and selected by my friend and bonsai artist Joe Samuels. Joe passed away some years back and was a great help to me in advancing my bonsai knowledge. The tree was a huge piece about 30 inches tall and with little or no low or inside foliage. I grew it for several years and decided that to become a good bonsai it would need to be reduced in size to bring the focal point back to the heavy trunk and large aerial roots coming from the trunk.

I reduced it pretty drastically and grew it on for about 4 more years when I finally came to the conclusion that I had not reduced it enough and I chopped it back even more. This slow decision making lost me 5 years or more in developing its final design. In the image below you can see the tree pretty much as it looked 19 years back and on the right is how it looks now. It is much smaller but still it is in a 20″ pot.