Al: Oh, I do indeed have more trees! I am a bit overwhelmed by the number of pots both in and outside of my home. I am an incurable collector. I could ask you questions about them all day. . . Back in March, you answered several of my questions about making the gritty mix when I was just embarking upon that adventure. I put a few plants that were on death's doorstep in the mix then. A few didn't make it (a draceana among them), a few are thriving (the aloe and spider plant love the mix!), most have held steady and are starting to show signs of growth (shefflera, swiss cheese philodendron). So I do have a sense of the patience required when repotting before the optimal time. I'm looking forward to seeing the results of undertaking things at the right time. It's been nice to practice with the mix, learn about it's water retention, and begin to tweak it for my needs before I moved my most-beloveds into it. This week I chopped an enormous floppy jade back to it's thick base and put it in the mix. Looking forward to that development. Also a favorite cactus whose name I don't know; it's about four feet tall, main stalk about 3-4" diameter with five stalks coming off the main, so maneuvering it was an exciting project. I was nervous about that one, but glad I did it when I got in there and saw how cemented the roots were in the hardest soil I've ever dealt with. I have a ficus lyrata (fiddle fig) that also reaches the ceiling, so I'm using your advice to give it a new shape. I'm planning on following roughly the same timing for it as for the elastica. I have a very big Bloodgood maple in a pot that's too big to move. I'd love to get that back to a manageable size, but it has just leafed out beautifully and I'm thinking that it is not the right time for that. Your comments are welcome. My other big question involves conifers. I have a very sick Wilma Goldcrest Cypress, and some kind of arborvitae (I think). I've noted that you don't recommend bare-rooting these, but cutting wedges. Is that correct? What about timing? Okay, I've rambled enough. As you can probably tell now, I'm addicted (like many folks I've read on this site). Thanks again for your help. I'm really enjoying learning about the plants, seeing their roots, and giving them conditions to thrive. blessings, brenda

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

I'm confused. If you have 4 cuttings, simply divide them, as long as the roots haven't approach grafted to other roots - even then, with plants that young it would be no problem to cut through the roots to separate the cuttings. If you have 4 stems on 1 root system, you can usually cut through the primary stem between the secondaries and root them out. You should have almost 100% guaranteed success if you do this in the summer. You can start an air layer anytime, and there are a number of ways to affect an air layer. Ficus e responds very well to the method of cutting 3 or 4 flaps of cambial tissue so the flaps are attached at the top of the cuts and the bottom of the cuts are held open by small pebbles or toothpicks. You then pack moist sphagnum moss (not peat - New Zealand white moss is best) around the wounded stem and wrap it with plastic, then with something to exclude light (aluminum foil?). Depending on how healthy the plant is and when you start the layer, you should have enough roots to separate the layer in 2-6 months. The first picture above is an air layer and the second is being prepared for ground layering. I hope I answered your question in spite of my confusion. If not, please try again. ;-) Al

I wrote this as a reply to something over on the botany forum and figured I'd be able to use it from time to time, so saved it. Let me know if you want anything explained a different way: A higher degree of expression of the pigment anthocyanin (which expresses the color red or purple) in juvenile foliage is very common throughout the plant kingdom for a couple of reasons. First, even though the pigment absorbs light w/o being a part of the photosynthetic process, it plays a photoprotective role for new leaves that emerge under high light conditions ...... when they are in an ontogenetic stage that make them more sensitive/vulnerable to light over-saturation. If you were able to quantify it at home ..... the reduction in anthocyanin's expression would be seen to correspond with a decreased need for photoprotection, this, because photosynthetic maturation allows leaves to utilize higher light intensities. A major consideration (that occurs during photosynthetic maturation) is an increase in chlorophyll, the pigment often referred to as 'nature's sunscreen for plants'. In short, the red coloration disappears as photopigment concentrations and leaf cuticle thickness increases, both of which would be occurring as mesophyll underlying the leaf cuticle differentiates into separate layers (pallisade and spongy). Second (but probably not a consideration in F benjamina), the red coloration is also very often associated with an increase in phenolic compounds that serve as defense against insect predation or herbivory by making leaves unpalatable. It's also thought in many circles that the red coloration may make leaves more difficult for some insects and herbivores to see, and may signal insects that the affected leaves are a less nutritional food source than bright green foliage elsewhere, or that it would make a poor receptacle for ovaposition (egg-laying). Al