I’ve had this ficus for about 13 years. It’s kind of always looked like this. I’ve repotted it and trimmed it annually but it just seems thin. I keep it outside in the summer and indoors in the winter. I’m curious what the experts would do to make this look awesome? It doesn’t look bad I suppose but nothing special. Cut it way back? I want it to look full with new growth. Any help would be appreciated!
by Stallion802
7 Comments
Your branches are all too long for the size of your trunk. A hard cut back, every branch back to just an inch or so long, would allow you to restart and get more branching closer in to the trunk.
I would do a trunk chop and stick it in a much larger pot for a few years. It looks a bit leggy and the outer branches have a lot of scarring from leaving wire on too long. Ficus sprout new growth very quickly, so you should have plenty of options for new leaders to thicken the trunk and work on taper.
You could remove the first branch, and cut the top to the little branch on the right. That would give you a lot of taper, and hopefully the tree would backbud to give you more potential branches. It’s got a lot of potential, take your time doing whatever you decide. Good luck with it.
One hard chop, root the cutting. Put both in bigger nursery pots to get some trunk swell. Ficus work really well for this. I have multiple 2 year cuttings with huge bases.
Hard to give advice without knowing the zone and without knowing your vision foe the trunk.
Are you happy with the nebari? If yes skip to trunk line (below). If not, you need to pot it in something flat so roots grow laterally not deep. For the roots to grow thick you need to let the top run. Also ficus can be cut back to a stump and they’ll produce new roots from the cut. They’re not finicky about root work.
Are you happy with the primary trunk line? If not, keep the leaves, repot it into something larger and feed miracle grow and give it full sun. Do this until you’re happy with the trunk line.
If you’re looking to develop secondary branching you can essentially cut back to the trunk or with a few inches of branches left. It will bud back vigorously – put it out in full sun right away. No need to repot at this time.
Ficus will bud back profusely when you feed it. So you can let a branch run, feed heavily then cut off the foliage and it will back bud on the branch that you’ve kept.
You can save the foliage you cut off and make cuttings. Cuttings will fuse very readily with the trunk so it’s something to think about as a means to increasing trunk diameters. Obviously this will take several seasons.
That entire left side just makes me really unhappy. Sorry I know that’s not constructive but it irks me.
This tree has really nice bones so far and I would say go with others reccomendations to prune it way back and get it into a larger pit and fertilize the hell out of it.
>I’ve repotted it and trimmed it annually but it just seems thin.
Repotting anually slows overall growth.
Purning slows trunk growth.