Peepal Tree

Tree species : Ficus Religiosa (Peepal tree)
Collected on : Oct 1, 2015 

I got 2 stem cuttings from this single plant, growing on the side of a road divider. The roots were below the road and the top of the 2 trunks went into the side wall. I suspect it formed roots there. The only way to extract this was to cut the top & bottom with a hacksaw blade.

This was a mix of raft and clump style, with 3 clumps.

This one died.

Though both were kept in shade and watered carefully, both struggled initially, losing some leaves & leaf tips drying out. The one on the right finally died. Too much water in soil is the only reason I can think of. Both had same soil & watering routine, with daily misting too. 

I am surprised that such a hardy ficus died. In future, I will use only filtered coarse sand for cuttings due to better results than even cocopeat. Here, I made the mistake of using my bonsai mix directly (2 parts soil, 1 part coarse sand, 1 part cocopeat). Usually my cuttings used to go into cocopeat directly. Anyway, the one in green bottle survives.

UPDATE

Reason : The last remaining piece died a few months later. The tree was healthy for a while but due to heavy infestation of white flies, I pruned the top half of all stems in one go. Instead, of sprouting new branches, it just died. This was a good raft bonsai material to lose.

In hindsight, I should have pruned it in a phased manner and substrate should have been coarse sand, instead of my bonsai soil mix which had soil also. While throwing it away, I noticed it had a good root mass.