I love this tree too. The one in Scottsdale is nothing compared to the one in Tempe in the lakes community south of Baseline and east of Rural. I talked to a guy that lives next to it, and he said that one of the original renters of this apartment complex planted it in the early 70s. It's got to be 80 feet tall. Truly looks like a tree out of the rain forest. The ones in the forest of uco at the zoo have those great aerial roots because they are constantly misted in the summer. Mine did not produce significant aerial roots until I hooked us some misters around it. Next time you go to the zoo, notice the variation between the trees. It is not just one species of Ficus. There are three distinct growth types at the zoo. The older ones in the forest of uco and the ones near the entrance have straight growing branches with spaced perfectly oval leaves. I think these are the F benghalensis. The one next to the bird cage that is north of the ocelot has longer and less oval leaves and I think it is a F lutea. Across from it, there is one with sharper and darker leaves that was recently planted. It even has a botanical sign - it is a F trichopoda (amazingly striking) The newer ones across the elephants and near the spider monkeys have more erratic growing branches and less perfect leaves. New growth swirls around and is not erect like benghalensis. This is the kind I have. IÂve been trying to figure out what kind this is for a while. It could be one of a dozen species from Africa that look very similar. They all have large leaves and easily grow aerial roots. There are also several large F palmeri (do not grow aerial roots, but sure can hug a rock) around the zoo that look similar, but these are locals from the southern sonoran desert. Tony

Recuva is the only program I know of that can find deleted files like that and discdigger, so you might try it. See link. It talks about recuva and mentions discdigger. Joe Here is a link that might be useful: photo-picture-or-file-you-deleted-accidentally

Could you post the picture?

Hello Dennis and welcome to the forum. It's sad that you lost the big plant to rot, hopefully with everyone's help we can prevent that from happening again. It's a struggle to keep these plants looking pristine and mine have been through some really tough times believe me! I started growing them in 2004, from seeds off eBay and this year I have witnessed my first flowers to form properly and not drop off in the early bud stages like in previous years....though it would never happen! Now my second plant is about to produce blooms in the next week or so. The first plant is pink, the common colour and this second one is well on its way to be a white or some other very pale colour. I gave 8 from seed, 3 obesums and 3 Arabicums, plus two gifts, both obesums....but I've lost count of the ones I've lost, these 8 are now doing the best of all :-)) My plants are grown hard, they don't have any great size to them, but are short, stout and rather leafy with good hard caudexes. My mix is small bark chips, alpine gravel, seived perlite and general purpose bagged potting compost in roughly equal amounts. I can't get the turface,scoria and other ingredients a lot of the US growers use, so I have to adapt. I use Chempak 8 fertiliser once a week having been advised its a good alternative to the Dynagrow foliage pro that again, a lot of our American growers favour. If it's particularly sunny and they look/feel dry as in the past few weeks I use just plain water in between. The trick is to keep them on the dry side in winter as cold and wet=rot, (but sadly you know about that bit), and treat them as tropicals in the summer by watering more frequently. They can take a fair amount if water.....if they drain fast and properly, that is vital. Your pots are very attractive but I'm wondering as they fit rather tight, how do you water them? Do you water from a ve and then lift them out each time to drain fully ......as they certainly won't appreciate sitting in the run off? Others have mentioned that the small ones are over potted and yes I also agree. They will be far happier in a smaller pot. The other info you gave been given is good sound advise, please do come back again if you are unsure or need any more info, we like to help if we can. Goodness knows, I've asked for plenty of help in my time here! Gill.