A Ficus is a Ficus is a Ficus....

I've lived in Tegucigalpa, Honduras for about 10 months now and there's something that I've noticed that I want to share with you. When I lived in Texas, I used to look at a shrubs that were pruned into shapes and just wonder what possesses someone to turn a perfectly beautiful plant into a triangle, a ball or even (the worst) a group of balls. Well, I'm here to tell you that they absolutely LOVE to prune the Ficus trees and/or shrubs here!!! The sky is the limit when it comes to just what these lovely plants are shaped to resemble.

Here we have a lovely example of a...well, an exclamation mark? Maybe an egg? Perhaps it's a round ball that got out of hand.

On we go down the street and we come across this lovely row of oddly shaped boxy specimens. I can't wait to see what they do with them if they get too big for their spaces! Here's an example of artistic freedom and have yet to figure out just what the pruner had in mind when he connected the 2 trees. Is it 2 ducks kissing?? I really have no clue.

And then we have this really cool example of pruning a lovely tree into a basket, with a handle even! However, note that the garage door is directly behind the opening of the handle. It's my guess that the owner of this house got tired of not being able to see if a car was coming as he pulled out of his property and decided to kill 2 birds with one stone...make the tree a basket and then look through the handle!!

These next 2 trees (and I use that term loosely) are down the street from my house and I pass them every day. About every other day there is a man on a ladder pruning pruning pruning! Not one stray leaf is left by the time he's done. Anyone want to guess what this shape is called? These are about 15 feet tall....massive!

OK....I've saved the best for last. Well, at least the last of what I have photos of. I'm sure there are so many more works of art out there for me to photograph. I took this picture through the window of my car as I was driving. A guard sits outside the house directly across the street...with a very long 'gun' with a long barrel and a short handle. If I can stop someday and take a better picture, I will. Anyway, here it is...my current #1 pick for Honduran Creativity in Ficus Sculpture!!! It's a tree...shaped like a HOUSE!!

Next time....Houses built in the shape of trees!!!