Many of us do not have easy access to larger materials and must use small plants or cuttings to develop their bonsai. One way to utilize smaller material is to cultivate cuttings from a desirable plant. In this case it is a Ficus concinna with lovely new foliage that is quite red in color. I took multiple cuttings from the mother tree and rooted them. You can see the rooted cuttings in the first photo. Each is about 2-3 feet tall and in separate growing containers.

One after another is brought as close together as possible by removing interfering branches and roots. They are then held with plastic cable ties or any other suitable non-stretching material to secure the trees tightly together and then planted into a large growing container. These trees will be allowed wild growth with as little trimming as possible. Over time the ties will begin to press into the bark and then they can be removed and replaced as needed until the fusion is complete.

Over time branches are selected that grow out of the bundle are used in the final design of the bonsai. The end result is a larger tree than I could have developed in the same number of years in my plant room. If I lived in a tropical area I could have simply planted a tree in the ground and grown it for 5 years to get a thick trunk and then worked on developing the branch structure.