Ficus Trees in Containers
tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
12 years ago
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andersons21
11 years agolast modified: 8 years agotapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
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Show of your tallest Ficus trees!
Comments (10)Please don't take this as me being 'smart' or snippy, but trees are always reactive organisms (to their environment and cultural conditions), so they will always do their own thing in their own time. I'm just musing here, so this isn't aimed at you, Hosatlover. There are two sides to the growth control coin. One side is to sort of let the tree grow with as little interference from the human hand as possible, and see what happens. This is usually sufficient to keep the tree small, because it keeps it from growing at even close to its genetic potential. The downside of that is it usually produces unwanted effects. E.g., allowing a tree to become severely root bound slows branch extension to a near stop, usually reduces vitality considerably, which opens the door to disease and insect predation, and causes the tree to lose most of it's lower and inner foliage. The other side of the coin is, to take the steps to ensure the tree is always healthy from the very beginning, and then control the size/shape of the plant with judicious pruning above and below ground. This starts with the short list of 4 elements I mentioned in my post above. It's kind of a circuitous thing. You keep a tree looking good by making sure you have lots of pruning opportunities (lots of branches); and the way to get lots of branches (and leaves) is to keep the tree healthy and prune it. The more you prune, the more branches you will have TO PRUNE, and the denser the growth will be. The roots are the tree's heart, and good health always starts with the roots. Dr Carl Whitcomb, PhD, wrote what is probably the bible on growing plants in containers. Some "Whitcomb-isms": "If the root system ain't happy, ain't no part of the plant happy" "Roots control the tree, the stems and branches just think [not my emphasis] they are in charge." "The more roots to share the load, the faster the dirty work gets done" "Roots provide the fuel for the plant engines we call leaves" "Each root tip casts a vote to decide what the top will be allowed to do" "Top growth gets all the glory, but the roots do all the dirty work" He also notes that "Stress can ALWAYS be measured in the root system before symptoms appear in the top [of the plant]". I've always taken the approach that it's better to keep all my plants as healthy as possible (which includes regular root work where appropriate - it is in most plants), growing like crazzy, and as a result have to restrain it's growth by pruning, than it is to allow stressful conditions to limit growth. The different approaches produce two totally different trees. Al...See MoreRubber Tree, Ficus b. - Culture, Propagation, Pruning, Problems
Comments (150)Hi, Tammy - I think I noted not far upthread, that one of the first signs of a root bound tree is the lack of branch extension and loss of interior foliage. The 'tufted' look is so characteristic, that I eliminated a tree the owner expected to win the 'expert class' in a bonsai show I judged this summer, because I could tell the roots were very constricted, just by looking at the tree. When the condition is allowed to get particularly severe, roots wrapped around other roots can completely cut off the flow of water and nutrients to the upper parts of the tree. Trees are somewhat different from species to species in how tightly they adhere to the arrangement that root A feeds branch A, root B feeds branch B, and so on, so that when root A dies, branch A dies. All trees follow this connection to some degree, so it's normal for individual branches originally fed by roots that were later compromised by tight conditions to be shed for lack of the tree's ability to move water and nutrients through the compromised conductive roots. Ideally, we would correct the root issues during a full repot. The problem with that scenario is your tree sounds severely stressed and unlikely to be able to recover from such a drastic procedure for two reasons, the stressed and weakened condition being one, and the the other being that the timing is bad with the tree just going into winter. If you can be patient, I'm not at all concerned about the trees being lopsided. We can build a tree from whatever remains viable for the long term. My focus would remain fixed on getting the tree to a state of vitality that will allow us to start serious work on the tree w/o killing it. Because you just acquired the trees, there is probably no way for you to determine how badly the soluble salts situation is - how much is in the soil. Safest is to assume the salt level is higher than it should be and the soil should be flushed. This is pretty much a standard suggestion for struggling trees. It sort of 'resets' the level of nutritional reserves in the soil, flushing out all the excess soluble that we can't even guess at the concentrations of, and replacing them with a low dose of fertilizer. This ensures that the nutrients are available at a low level that won't interfere with water uptake. Let me know if you're good with: * Flushing the soil very thoroughly. Flush 5-10 times with room or ambient temperature water, using at least the volume of the container for each flush. * Cutting off the bottom 2-3 inches of the root mass and making deep vertical slits in the root mass at 3-4" intervals with a utility knife. * Potting up, using a soil very similar to the one your plant is in now, for now. (We can work around this if you'd rather not invest in such large pots. Let me know.) * Inserting a wick through the drain hole before you pot up. Ideally, you would melt another hole through the bottom near the side and insert the wick there. * After you water, tilt the container at a 45* angle with the wick down. The wick should dangle 2-3" below the container, and not touch the effluent (drained water). This will remove MUCH more water from the soil, and allow you to water copiously and flush the soil each time you water. You'll be flushing the fertilizer out of the soil, along with any accumulating salts, so plan on fertilizing with a half strength dose of 24-8-16 or 12-4-8 (both 3:1:2 ratios) about every 3-4 times you water. Don't worry - there is no danger of over-fertilizing if you can follow this plan. It's a very healthy way to approach nutrition management. It assures a low concentration of nutrients in the right ratio at all times, which is actually a very admirable goal for your nutritional plan no matter where your plants are in their growth cycle. * Keep your watering under control. Only water on an 'as needed' basis. Wait until the wick feels dry, or the soil is dry when you test it at the drain hole, or a sharpened dowel or skewer comes out clean and dry after you insert it deep into the roots. * Keep the plants in the best light you can provide, and try to keep soil temperatures above 65*, up to 80. * Guard against sunburn. If you think/know the trees were in low light, acclimate them to high light levels gradually - over a period of a week or two. You can read through this thread & see if you spot anything I might have missed, based on similar advice to others. To be honest, I've been talking to so many people about their Ficus trees over the last month or so (not just those from GW) that it's hard to remember everything. Be sure to raise any questions or concerns, and ask for clarification where/if needed. Take good care. Al...See MoreAdvice on Ficus Alii
Comments (7)It has some conspicuous chill injury, and will likely shed some additional foliage due to being shipped in the dark and likely packed into close quarters with other plants that shaded the lower foliage during preparation for shipping, during shipping, and while packed in tight quarters with other plants at the POS (means point of sale, not what one might initially think it meant) facility. You wondered what you should do. My suggestion would be to learn what it likes, culturally, so you can minimize the stress factor, then take some time to learn what it takes to maintain trees in containers for the long term. Once armed with that information, you can put together a plan that takes advantage of the plant's strengths and avoids stressing it when it's in the more vulnerable part of the growth cycle. Making a good plan and following it should allow you to have your plant well on its way to a very attractive specimen by mid summer, which isn't long in tree time. Al...See MoreAmateur hour: ficus edition
Comments (15)Nice tree - my wife likes the braided ones, I tend to go for sort of "informal upright" trees. I can't claim to know the first thing about bonsai, but influenced by bonsai trees, I try to keep the trunks relatively larger than the upper portion of the trees. It looks like you have a schefflera brassaia next to your ficus? I have a schefflera arboricola on the opposite side of my ficus retusa, and you can see a small ficus benjamina on the other side of the retusa (it is 3 cuttings inosculated together). I believe the ficus retusa is 20-some years old, but I haven't been caring for it nearly that long! You can see how it lost it's leaves after a shocking move/transition. You can really see what I mean by needing to trim the branches after the leaves were lost: they only regrew at the ends of branches (apical dominance). Now these are "sacrifice branches": serving only the purpose of thickening the branches until I prune them way back very close to the primary (trunk) so new branches can re-grow. I didn't have the guts to trim as much as I should have, but now I'm mentally preparing myself to chop off all the branches. Also, the fig (ficus carica) on the far left of the top pic lost all its leaves when it got smashed, then frozen. The last picture shows how it recovered (with a vengeance). That pic is from a week ago, it has a lot more leaves and branches now! I definitely agree about soil that is too retentive - I never use MG. I love this gritty mix - very well draining!...See Moreandersons21
11 years agolast modified: 8 years agotapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
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11 years agolast modified: 8 years agojulia_c
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tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)Original Author