If you're serious about wanting to save the plant: I think your best bet is to get the plant into a highly aerated soil and hope it recovers. Cuttings from a plant that is circling the drain have little chance of striking because they are almost certainly lacking in any energy reserves, probably the most significant factor in determining the likelihood that a cutting will strike. I would carefully bare root the plant, making sure the roots stay moist while you're working on them. Then, pot the tree in a 50/50 mix of perlite and chopped sphagnum moss (not peat moss) . Tenting the plant so it's surrounded by high humidity is desirable, as TC suggests. While waiting for the verdict, you can get over one of the major hurdles faced by those of us with an affinity for growing trees in small containers. Understanding the importance of getting your soil to work FOR, instead of against you, is a requirement if you're to be successful. See below for more. Al Here is a link that might be useful: Help with understanding soils here.

Yes, it's very easy, but you'll need to provide an image. As a bonsai practitioner, a regular part of how we make trees look very old is by inducing rapid taper in the trunk - very fat at the bottom, very thin on the top. Heavy branches low on the tree, twiggy growth at the top - just as you see in nature, only condensed. It's not unusual for me to dig up a tree which is 10 or more feet tall, immediately after shortening the tree to something like 4-6 inches in ht. At least 90% of my trees have had the 'trunk chop' procedure done multiple times. Examples: This ficus microcarpa ^^^ was chopped severely 3 times. You can barely see one major scar low on the right side of the tree. There's another between the leader and left branch, and another on the top of the right branch just to the right of the thinner part of the trunk. This tree ^^^ (having just been pruned hard in the image) has been chopped hard 5 times. In both cases, the chops are strategically planned so the scars aren't visible when observing the tree from its front, 'front' being it's best or most eye-appealing side. This ^^^ is the first (and second) chop on a maple (tree in middle - in black nursery can - big white scare. The branch with the wire is the new trunkline and the right fork (fatter side) of the trunk will eventually be cut off. It's purpose until that time is to add thickness to the thin part of the trunk. Same tree after several chops - notice the taper. The scars will heal. Same tree - still progressing. It has about 2 more years of growth and training before it gets a quality bonsai pot. This is last year's image, and it's made good progress this year. I hope you enjoyed that and were/are left with the sense it won't be too difficult to fix whatever you did to/for your tree. Trees are very predictable, so much so that we can plan ahead to utilize branches that don't yet exist, because we know at some point 'they will'. Ready when you are. Al

Your conifers should be fine when planted in air-pruning pots. I have grown 2 Arizona Cypress seedlings that way and it seems to work ok. One side benefit is less likelihood of damping off fungus. While the tap root is the normal genetic rooting tendency of many conifers, they will readjust and go to the more dense many root system if the tap root is cut or when air pruned. I am watering with coffee once a week to slow down damping off in my other pots. Think it helps. Have seen several Atlas and Deodar scattered around central Tx. Tried one but it would not grow, believe my soil was too alkaline - blackland clay. Good luck with yours.

Hi Al, I’ve finally had the opportunity to reply with an update and wanted to thank you again for taking the time to share your knowledge and help explain the process and reasoning behind choosing a particular growing medium. I am always fascinated by the science of things and am looking forward to my ficus lyrata breathing easier. July 31 was repot day. I gathered all of my 1.1.1 gritty mix supplies, screened & rinsed the turface mvp & manna-pro poultry grit, & proceeded to make a huge mess trying to coax the zoo med repti-bark into smaller pieces using a 3-cup ninja food processor - - neither a quick nor easy endeavor. Some pieces did get smaller but not enough to justify the amount of dust that landed all over my kitchen, so the size of my bark is what it is. I want to stress that a dust mask is imperative for anyone attempting this, especially indoors, and also to note that I did not see any discernible difference in bark size between the larger (24 qt) & smaller (4 qt) bags (see picts below) Next I bare rooted what I thought was 1 plant and discovered that I have 2 separate plants - - and I did wind up doing some minimal root pruning after rinsing off all the existing soil. After drilling additional drainage holes all the way through the bottom of the attached saucer, I repotted both plants back into the same original glazed pot as I did not have the opportunity to get an all clay pot, nor did I have a 2nd pot available to repot separately so they will continue to be bosom buddies, at least until next year. In the hopes of lessening the weight of the pot and more importantly, the perched water table, I placed 4 small empty plastic water bottles at the bottom of the pot and added a cotton string wick through the main center drainage hole to help keep a check on moisture levels. One other thing to note is when I originally posted on July 25, there was no visible growth activity - the brown pod (for lack of a better word) felt dry, crispy & empty, but to my surprise, right after the repot, I noticed that there was in deed some growth activity taking place. I only hope I did not jeopardize the emergence of new baby leaves with this root running & repot! As luck would have it, I have to go out of town for 2 weeks and need to leave explicit instructions for my boyfriend who will be caring for my plants while I am away so I do have a few questions: ~ How long should I keep the plant in the shade or is it ok to keep it in bright light but with NO direct sun? Right now it is behind a UV solar blind and sheer linen curtain which creates a shady environment. ~ When can I introduce it back into some direct sunlight? ~ Should I water everyday until the roots acclimate & re-establish themselves in the gritty mix? What is the best watering schedule for now? ~ When would I start adding foliage pro 9-3-6 to the mix & should it be the production or maintenance amount? Many thanks to Al and all the other forum members for all the advice. I will update once I am back from my trip with any changes - - hopefully they are all positive ones. **having trouble positing picts so will try to add in separate post