u/Silt-Besides-66812

In the gardens and squares of Palermo there are many large specimens of ficus macrophylla f. columnaris, and the largest of them is this one at the botanical gardens; the canopy is around 75m wide in its broadest direction and supported by the vigorous aerial roots acting as pillars, sometimes fused with the trunk and other times independent of it.
The tall ‘wall-like’ roots are also an interesting detail.

Despite its size this tree is estimated to be less than 200 years old.

As a final bonus ishizuki inspiration the last picture is from a different specimen of the same species that is engulfing a small stone pedestal that was placed a little too close to it.

I really liked the five needle pine in the last picture; but also the two cork oaks in pictures 6 and 7, they were directly facing each other in the right corridor of the collection and I think that juxtaposition exalted both their similarities and their differences.

If you are in Barcelona I really think it’s worth a visit, it’s included in the ticket for the botanical garden (very large and modernly designed, it focuses in its entirety on the various mediterranean climates around the world) but you have to watch out that the bonsai collection does not have exactly the same opening hours of the garden (they are only visible on weekends).

I saw this tree last October in a local nursery (second and third pictures), today I came back and I took a picture of it again (first picture).

The third picture is a detail of a hollow branch that stuck me when I first saw it as it reminds me of the cavities that sometimes happen in large trees, I forgot to take a picture of it this time but now there is a little moss growing inside it. There is an even larger cavity on the trunk.

I am surely going to come back in winter to look at the deciduous branches.
The bonsai I found the most stunning is probably that pine in picture nr7

My little laurel plant has psyllids eating all the buds.
It’s the second time that I try to cut all the affected leaves, removing all the insects I can see, but last time it did nothing and they just came back.
How do I deal with it without any harmful chemicals? (because I use this plant for cooking)

This is my little common sage (salvia officinalis) that I repotted at the end of march; today I did some cleanup on it. This plant had been in a flower pot for 10-15 years before this and now that I am starting with bonsai I am always looking around for new plants to experiment with.
It’s not very beautiful but I have already learned a couple things about this species that may suggest why it’s not used in bonsai:
1- lignified branches, even the very small ones, are extremely brittle!
2- any deadwood on sages rots very fast, like their “cousins” rosemary, maybe even faster

The pot is definitely oversized for the plant but that’s because I plan to let it grow a lot for now, in a few years I will take it into a pot of a more appropriate size.

The second picture is from right after the repot, at the end of march, the third picture is from last September