It sounds like a good candidate for a trunk chop. Sever the trunks an inch or so above the second leaf from the bottom. Spritzing the wound with plain water a minute or so after pruning will stop the sap from oozing. Unpot and use a pruning saw to remove the bottom 1/3 of the root mass & then remove all the soil from the roots. A combination of a chopstick and a garden hose on 'fine spray' will help with the chore. If the roots are dense & tangled, remove an additional 1/3 of the remaining roots, concentrating on only the heaviest - leave the finer roots. Repot into the same container (if you choose), using a free-draining soil. Use the chopstick to work the soil into the root mass so there are no air pockets. Site the plant outdoors in bright shade & water only when the soil is dry a couple of inches below the surface. As the planting matures & roots colonize the entire container, water when the soil first feels dry at the drain hole, or a wick inserted in the drain hole is dry. A wick can be a useful tool - especially before the planting is well-established. If you are interested in knowing more - just ask. Fertilize at repot time with a 1/4 suggested strength solution of an all purpose fertilizer like MG 24-8-16 or 12-4-8 and repeat weekly (making sure that when you water, you saturate the soil and at least 10-15% of the water you apply runs through and exits the drain hole). Balanced blends like 20-20-20 or similar have much more P than the plant needs. I've already repotted 3/4 my 30+ Ficus bonsai & treated them in similar fashion - a hard pruning, a complete root-pruning, & a complete soil change - all had latent buds breaking all over the plant within a week. What I just described is an excellent way to rejuvenate a tropical tree. Al

I see some misconception in the previous posts, so let me clear some things up. Ficus e. is not particularly picky about it's environment. It grows over a wide range of temperatures & light conditions and does well as long as you keep in mind it's a tropical tree. IOW, it likes temperatures always above 50-55* and it likes lots of light. This tree easily adapts to full sun. It does not like cold temps, particularly drafts, and it will drop leaves when you reduce light to individual leaves. I mentioned "individual", because simply rotating a tree that's in front of a light source will shade leaves that used to be in direct line with the light & possibly cause abscission of the newly-shaded foliage. They do NOT rebel when you improve cultural conditions (like more light or warmth), but will reward you with better vitality and an accelerated rate of biomass increase. Not fertilizing a plant that is not growing "could" be like not feeding a short child. The reason the plant is not growing could be that it lacks the necessary nutrients & is robbing other tissues in the plant to try to produce new growth. Nature is never in stasis. Plants that are not growing are dying. I.e. they are using more energy than they are producing. It is true that in zone 6, plants will not need much in the way of nutrient supplementation from around mid-Sep to about the spring equinox (mid-Mar), but you'll need to regularly supplement nutrients during the active growth cycle. Tomato fertilizer is very good for Ficus. Figs don't "like" to be tight or slightly tight in their pots. It reduces their vitality. We can use the effect of growing plants in a root-bound state to our advantage though. The first sign that a tree is being grown in a root-bound state is lack of node extension and smaller leaves. Your tree will remain more compact, but it will be at the expense of vitality. If I wanted to maximize growth, I would use a very large pot and a very fast soil (the fast soil guards against root-rot in over-potted plants). I'm not sure what is meant by ".... too big a pot and they're lost.", but the combination of a large pot & fast soil is how you maximize the o/a mass of your plant. Prune often. If you get in the habit of pruning back to two leaves, any branch with more than 4 or 5 leaves, and removing immediately any branches that do, or have the potential to spoil the outline/appearance of the tree, you/ll end up with a very attractive plant. Al

Perhaps you missed the point; that being that genetics plays the major role in determining hardiness within species. It's possible that there are plants that are hardy in your area that you are unaware of. E.g. Ulmus parvifolia and Ficus carica are plants that in the case of the former are found growing in areas from the equator to zone 4, and F. carica, with some protection is known to grow from the equator to zone 5. You cannot, however, take plants that show good vigor in situ near the equator and move them to the northern latitudes where their counterparts are perfectly happy and expect them to survive the change in provenance. My intent wasn't to say whether Ficus e. was or wasn't hardy in a particular area, only that it's not the zone that determines hardiness, but the genetics of the plant material. Zonal considerations are a reasonable guideline, but guideline is about as good as it gets. ;o) Take care. Al

I missed the 4th picture from the top, which shows the leaf arrangement to be 'opposite' (leaves arranged in pairs on opposite sides of the branch). Ficus leaves are alternate (arranged singly along the stem in alternating locations). So whatever it is, it's not a Ficus. Some good Samaritan who's better at IDs than I, will come along and tell you what it is. Your soil should be something you can water to beyond the saturation point (so you're flushing accumulating salts from the soil) without the need to worry the soil will stay soggy so long it affects root health or function. Your soil choice is probably going to have more impact on how easy/ difficult it will be to keep your new pals healthy. I'm not sure how much effort you want to put into learning about the importance of soil choice and it's impact on plant vitality; if you're interested this link covers it, and probably represents the largest step forward a container gardener can take at any one time. The goal for fertilizing containerized plants can easily be described. Ideally, we would work toward ensuring that all the nutrients plants normally secure from the soil are in the soil solution at all times, in the ratio at which the plant actually uses the nutrients, and at a concentration high enough to ensure no deficiencies yet low enough to ensure the plant isn't impeded in its ability to take up water and the nutrients dissolved in water. This goal is easily achievable using one water soluble synthetic fertilizer. You CAN use organic forms of nutrition, like fish/seaweed emulsions or various types of meal, but that makes it much more difficult to achieve the goal. I use Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 because it has ALL the essential nutrients in the ratio at which plants actually use the nutrients, and it gets most of its N from nitrate sources, which helps to allow plants in low light conditions to remain compact and helps keep them from getting leggy. Al