Actually, F. benjamina is really hard to kill as long as the environmental conditions (light, soil, moisture, and temperature) are correct. They respond really well to hard pruning. I worked at a garden center for 20 years. We sold a lot of ficus, and got a lot of them back half dead due to people NOT understanding normal acclimation (ie, the leaf drop when moved), or from abusing them like overwatering or underwatering or putting them virtually in the dark. They ALWAYS came back with just a little TLC. Don't be afraid at all to cut them back as hard as you want. They will even regenerate directly from the trunk if they have to. Just be sure to do it outdoors or over a drop cloth, and don't get the sap in your eyes or mouth, it burns. And, when you do the top, knock it out of the pot, cut off a good share of the root mass, the outer quarter or so, and especially all of the twisted mass of fine feeder roots along the base of the pot. Then, try to wash off as much of the old soil from the roots as possible. Repot it in really high quality soilless mix, put it into good, bright light, run it just a bit dry for the first 7 days, then water it a little more to keep the soil moderately moist, and it will bounce back in just a month or so. When the new growth is a couple of inches long, give it a little fertilizer of your choice.

Your tree is considered apically dominant. What this means is, the natural growth pattern of your tree is to favor elongation of branches instead of producing branches in the axil (crotch formed by the leaf stem and the branch it's attached to). There is a growing tip at the end of every branch that produces a hormone that suppresses side shoots. If you remove that tip, you reduce the amount of the chemical hormone flowing toward the roots, and new branches form in leaves nearest the tip of the cut branch.This is a cutting from which the tip was removed. Notice the new branches forming in the leaf axils. This occurs reliably, as long as your plant is growing, and that's what happened to your tree when the main trunk was severed. You shouldn't be dismayed that you should use restraint and wait to act until late spring or early summer to prune your tree or repot it (repotting is much more extensive than potting up). "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven" Ecc 3:1 Your plant has natural rhythms. It's strong and robust in the late spring, summer, and early fall; tired and lazy in the winter and early spring. Understanding that rhythm exists and planning your heavy work (hard pruning and repotting) so you're taking advantage of the plants strengths and not asking much of the plant when it's sort of coasting is an important part of the growing puzzle. A plant repotted in winter or early spring might take 3-4 months to recover fully from the work; whereas, a plant repotted or pruned hard on Father's Day might take 2-3 weeks to regain its footing and it's natural defenses. Plus, knowing you're being a better nurturer for making those allowances is bound to increase the satisfaction you get from nurturing ...... which is why most of us grow plants. Generally speaking, the nurturers are better growers than those that think of plants as decorations, for obvious reasons. Too, getting in the habit of pruning in June to remove all long/lanky winter growth and pinching until fall ensures you never have to do any really major pruning. Please see if you find this to be of any value. Al

On the cut on the left, there aren’t any branches between where Matt has marked it and the final branch at the end (v sparse - hoping for some growth here??). I’ve marked up the branches on the attached photo (branch A). Is it best to go back to where Matt has marked it or leave as it is? You decide. You want the general outline of the tree to take a shape sort of like a broad cone with a round top. That means you want to work toward a somewhat symmetrical tree with branches becoming shorter near the top. Since the tree is genetically programmed to devote about 2/3 of it's energy to the top 1/3 of the plant, you can prune that (the top) back harder. The whole tree is going to back-bud, so you'll have more pruning opportunities in a couple of weeks. On the cut on the right, I *think* the branch you're describing is actually not as long as it looks on the photo. Branch B on the marked up photo is pretty long - should this be cut back? Branch 'B', on the right, is the branch I was describing. Branches are classified in orders. The trunk is the first order, branches off the trunk are second order, and branches off second order branches are tertiary or 3rd order branches. Branch B is a second order branch. Unless you feel in your gut that cutting it back so all that's left are the 2 second order branches is a mistake (think about the outline), that's what I would do. One of the reasons we prune is to "chase" the foliage mass back closer to the trunk. It's much more eye appealing to have a full tree with short branches than a tree with long branches and foliage only at the ends of branches. So, look for opportunities to shorten branches near the top of the tree. One of the ways I do that is by focusing on the distal end of a branch then start following it with my eyes back toward the trunk. When I reach the point where there are only 2 branches of the next higher order left on the branch I'm following I prune immediately distal to the second branch. That's what I was describing for B originally. Then, I start looking at the 2 branches I left, and do the same thing with those, and if there were branches of a higher order growing from those branches, I repeat. Once your tree fills out, almost all of your pruning will be pinching or directional pruning, and what you'll be doing is filling holes in the canopy. This ^^^ is a Chinese quince bonsai I care for for another person. The large leaf at the base of the higher order branch was growing on the larger branch, and gave rise in its axil to the thin, higher order branch. I'm sure I removed the large leaf after the image was taken so it would reduce the energy flow to the small branch, which reduces leaf size and internode length. But back to directional pruning. If I want to make the small branch turn toward a gap in the canopy where it will get its share of light, I prune back to the leaf growing in that direction. Left as is, the branch will grow in the general direction of the distal leaf, so down/left. Removing the distal leaf would turn the branch up/left. If you want exactness, there are several ways to shape the branch exactly as you like. As is ^^^, the leader grows right. Move the pruning cut proximally to the next leaf/node and the leader grows left. Al

I just wanted to offer a follow-up report after taking the plunge, now that my ficus plants have survived their first summer outdoors. This past May, once temperatures were reliably ~60F/15C or above, I brought my ficus plants outdoors and placed them in the blazing sun on my 2nd floor balcony, without attempting to acclimate them. I gave them a hard prune (down to 2 or 3 leaves per branch, mostly, and cutting some of the remaining leaves across their width) and crossed my fingers. Here are some photos of 2 ficus elastica plants from last fall, before spending any time outdoors. I wanted to correct this 'trident' shape on the larger plant, and promote some lower, multi-directional growth on both: (plant #1 , circa autumn 2021) (plant #2, circa autumn 2021) A few days after I placed them outside this spring, I hadn't noticed any leaf burn, so I thought I might have gotten lucky and they'd transition painlessly. But soon after I witnessed dramatic scalding and the loss of all remaining leaves — I took some deep breaths and tried to keep my faith! And sure enough, I soon saw dramatic back budding on the plants' trunks, and new growth points sprouting in almost every axil of every new leaf. I tried to follow Al's advice to tip-prune every 3rd or 4th new leaf (depending on direction). Here's what they look like now: (plant #1, late September '22) (plant #2, late September '22) (two smaller ficus benghalensis plants which received the same treatment) The new leaf growth was smaller than I had expected, and on the ficus elasticas, a little redder in color, which surprised me — but I guess it's to be expected given the dramatic pruning and change in light levels. The overall mass of the plants didn't increase dramatically, but the number of new growth points (and thus potential future plant mass) has. I'm getting ready to move them back inside for the winter now that temperature is dropping. Curious to know how much leaf shedding/loss of new growth I'll have — they'll be in front of a south-facing bay window but it'll still be much less light than they've grown accustomed to. My understanding is I can refrain from pinching any fall/winter growth and instead plan on pruning any such leggy growth next spring/summer when they go back outside. Sorry for rambling – I just wanted to thank all of you for your advice and encouragement and hopefully offer some evidence that this 'nuclear option' of throwing potted ficus straight out into full-sun is indeed a viable one.