It is not easy to create a bonsai from a long and thin piece of material. One way is to use some heavy wire and shape the limber material to your desires. Be creative and try many different shapes. Some will be exciting and some will be losers.
In this case a root cutting of Ficus ‘Mystery’ was used to create an interesting bonsai.
On the left a root cutting of Ficus ‘Mystery’, center is the cutting wired for shape, right is the bonsai design beginning to take shape
This is an exercise in bonsai creation that is just for fun. The plant is a Ficus salicaria, Willow Leaf fig, grown from a root cutting. This was a very long root, perhaps 2 feet in length. Foliage has sprouted at the cut end but how to design a tree out of it?
One possibility is to place a lot of wire on it and to twist and turn and bend until the trunk is quite contorted. The result is as you see. The foliage canopy will need shaping but for now it is being left untouched to allow the trunk to grow and to hold the shape we have set into it with the wire. Literati or bunjin is the closest shape or style grouping in which this might fall.
I perhaps may change my mind and move the trunk into another shape.
Any thoughts?
The root cutting before it was shaped.
After wiring and twisting a shape emerges
Or is this shape more pleasing?
Another possible shape