Hi, Dave. What do you want to do with this tree? Do you plant to bonsai it? Are you trying to grow it into a large living-room tree?

Please give more info.

If it was my tree, I would wait until spring to do any pruning except for general tidiness.

You seem to be getting good growth indoors under lights. Unless the plant is getting out of bounds. I would wait except for minor trimming.

Al would be the expert on training the tree into a bonsai sort of tree. I'm sure he will help you with that.

Again, great growing. Just beautiful, healthy tree!

Jane

Thanks for the kind words, Jane!

Large living room tree would definitely be the best description, I'm not going for bonsai at all.

Its definitely growing well, especially for indoors.

My issue that I'm exactly speaking of is as follows.

Some growth indoors at first was a bit spindly. I wanted to remove that. I did, but when you prune back, you now have that branch growing at an entirely different angle and direction. That right there is what I'm looking to fix. I don't like the look of it to be chopped, and then the branch just goes in a different direction. Make sense?

thanks!

Take a hint from bonsai culture, and try your hand at some wiring. Especially with bigger trees, you can often get creative using twine, stakes and other materials to bend branches in the direction you want them to go. You'll have to experiment but after some time each branch will keep it's new position on it's own and you can remove the wires/twine/stakes/etc.

Another technique (often used with Ficus) is referred to as "clip and grow" where you cut a branch back to a shoot that is pointing more or less in the direction you want the branch to extend. With this technique, the direction of the shoot you prune to is more important than exactly how far down the branch it is (how long you're leaving the branch become less important than the direction it will extend).

And of course in practice you'll combine the techniques as you see fit - choosing a shoot more or less going the direction you want, and wiring or tying it further into place.

I've used twine on a few branches already. It grew a lot over the summer and some branches obviously became weighed down. The twine helped regain the shape.

As far as cutting back to a shoot that's in the intended direction, I totally get that, however, all the shoots point in a completely different direction and/or sideways.

thanks!

Only one area as of now I'd like to have full in. May take waiting till its outside again next summer though.

Hi Dave. I think I said the top should LOOK light and airy, but the tree tends to concentrate 2/3 of it's growing output in the top 1/3 of the tree, which means the top should be restrained regularly to keep the upper branches from growing heavier than the lower branches and causing the tree to look unnatural.

When your tree gets to be the size of yours, you can control the shape fairly well by directional pruning. If you look at the crotch angle of all the secondary branches, you can see they are roughly 45* to the primaries, and the tertiaries are all about 45* to the secondary branches, and so forth. So you can pretty much depend on where the branch that erupts from any leaf axil will naturally want to grow, even before it grows(though phototropism always has some influence). If you see the branch isn't growing to where you want it to, and you usually want it to grow wherever the nearest dearth of branches and foliage might be, you simply prune the wayward branch back to a branch that IS pointed in the right direction. In bonsai, we also add movement (curves) to the branches and direct them to EXACTLY where we want them to go by wiring, or if the branches are too thick to wire, we use mechanical manipulation to position them to the advantage of the compositions eye appeal.

Waiting for your bald spot to fill in won't work. The tree doesn't care about that area (or it would be full there), so you have to FORCE it to care. Reducing (pruning) the parts getting all the energy forces redirection of that energy to weaker parts of the tree. You can cut the top back with abandon and never worry, It's easy to build a top on any ficus because the tree is more than happy to work with you toward that goal, Not so much, when trying to keep the lower branches strong. If you see any heaviness in the top of the tree in terms of branches being thicker than lower branches, some energy redirection can allow the lower branches to catch up and pass the upper branches - just via pruning.

Al

Ah, good info!

so, say I want to prune back a branch, but I still want it to grow in a similar direction, I'd cut back to a secondary branch, and then cut the secondary branch back to a tertiary branch that'll run in a similar direction? If that's the case, that does in fact finally make sense to me.

I've cut back a little so far, but I'll wait to do more after the current growth spurt ends.

Im still seeing a lot of pink and reds in the young leaves toward the top. I thought ficus only put out those colors outdoors?

Last year, without any supplemental lighting, the young leaves were light green without the touch of pink and reds.

Do the cool colors (5500k and 6500k) in the supplemental lighting I have cause this?

Thanks to all!

..... or you can cut back to a leaf on any branch because you can be sure a new branch will appear in the leaf axil and grow in a direction you can predict by simply looking at how all other branches habitually grow in relation to the higher order (first order is the highest order - it's the trunk) of branch from which they grew.

There are a number of different factors that can cause expression of pigments normally obscured by chlorophyll. Soil temperature, soil pH, cellular pH, nutritional influences. presence of non-nutritional mineral/metal elements, ......... I don't think it would be because of the color of the light source, but who knows? Plants are amazingly intricate and affected by some of the strangest things.

I have a pink echeveria that turns green if I acidify the irrigation water or use Sprint 138 as a nutritional supplement (don't bother looking - it's a chelated Fe supplement for high-pH soils).

Al

Always, thanks for the good info.

only reason I figured the pink in the leaves had to do with light was because a lot of outdoor ficus I see in Florida have deep red to pink pigment in the young leaves, and all indoor grown with just a window as a light sorce have always had the bright green color in young leaves.

On top of that, when my tree was putting out new growth last spring (indoors), it was light green with no pink or red. Once I moved the tree outside and it started recieving direct sunlight, that's when the pigment started showing a much deeper red color to it.

And I see what you mean by saying ficus have no problem at all building a top...

Well, I decided to do a little pruning after all. Hopefully it will promote a little bit of back budding. I didn't go too crazy, but I did take about 10-12" off the top. I feel it actually has a better rounded shape now. It's now at about 6 feet tall, I didn't realize I was approaching 7 feet prior. Any comments?

I like it MUCH better, but I think you could still thin a LOT more of the heavy branching in the top of the tree.

Al

Thanks Al. And I'll work on thinning out the top in the near future. I'll report back with results.

Beautiful!

Mine grew in front of large (18ft) North window over the winter. Our ceilings were 18 feet. When I brought it in for the winter, I would prune it to open it up. Probably not the best time but it never seemed to bother it.

I loved that tree. I would prune it and at Christmas time wind small, clear bulbs throughout the branches. I did move it from the window for our large x-mas tree which took over the space.

My poor ficus got put in a dark corner for a month with the pretty lights but looked beautiful. Once the x-mas tree came down, the ficus went back in that large window.

When we sold our house, the buyers wanted the tree. They jokingly said they would not buy our house without the tree in that 18 ft window. Just made the living room.

Anyway, your beautiful pictures bring back fond memories. You are doing a wonderful job.

Jane

Getting some back budding so soon!

That new break was probably already in the pipeline, but might be related to some of the initial pruning you did. I can't tell from the pic if it's on the older wood in the foreground or if it originates on the smaller branch in the background. How enthusiastically a plant back-buds depends a lot on it's state of vitality and how hard it's pruned, so no matter how you look at it, it's a good sign.

Al

Al, it's off of the older part right after the crotch of the branch you see pictured. It's off a branch that's probably 1/2" in dimanter.

I know it has nothing to do with my recent prune but probably from the one I did a few weeks back. But either way, it's definitely a great sign. Id like to promote as much of that as possible.

heres a better angle.

Thinned out the top half of the tree to let a bit more light in and sort of match the bottom half better.

Much better. Next June, you can REALLY thin and cut back the top. You'll soon see a lot of benefit from just what you've done so far.

Al

Will do! Every piece of info you've given me has worked wonders so far and I have truly seen better results by following your tips.

I've spent a lot of time toiling over trees that were mine, and another fair measure of those that weren't; and I try to make sure what I think I'm seeing is what I really AM seeing before I share anything that might affect your growing experience. I'm much more careful about what I suggest you do to your trees than what I actually do to my own, so you're generally pretty safe if you 'work the plan'. ;-)

Al

I can definitely see that. I know very well that you do not give misguided advice and have gone through trial and error many times before you'd share something. I really appreciate your help and willingness to help others succeed with growing. I know 100x what I did even just a couple months back, thanks to you. Thank you, Al!

It should be interesting to look at pictures you posted a week ago and compare to what your tree looks like @ next summer's end. ;-)

Al

I agree! Just to show you how far the tree has come this year, here is the same tree this past March. What a difference.

I love the indoor growth im still getting. I'm going to have to conclude the grow lights are definitely helping. I hope to keep this up all winter. Lights are on a timer from 7am - 8pm.

just a few months ago I wasn't sure if ficus needed a sort of dormancy, not like deciduous trees that drop leaves, but more like an inactive growth period. However, I do believe if they get the right amount of light and conditions, they can just keep growing all year.

They don't need a dormancy in the same sense that trees which enter predictive dormancy do, but they often utilize a consequential dormancy or quiescence as a mechanism by which they remain viable through periods of extreme drought or diminished photo loads, so your thinking, "If they get the right amount of light and conditions, they can just keep growing all year" is spot on.

Al

Thank you, sir!