The main root mass is still supplying water & nutrients to the top via the xylem, and that burden shifts to the roots produced by layering at the point in time when the layer is separated; so, some care should be taken to ensure things don't go awry, but by and large you should be fine for at least a week or two, doing nothing more than keeping the layering medium moist. Al

Hello! I'm a beginner, this is my first houseplant! While flipping through an old houseplant guide that my mother had given me, I saw the ficus lyrata in the "showy foliage plants" section. I thought it was lovely and after reading a bit I decided I just had to have one. I did some research before purchasing, although now that I have read through a good portion of the FLF threads on this forum I am worried I only scratched the surface. I'll admit, I probably didn't buy the healthiest plant but it was the only one that I found! It was already almost 4 feet tall. I live in Tehachapi, California at around 4000ft hot/dry in the summer and cold in the winter where nighttime temps can drop to freezing. I knew it would need to be kept inside. I purchased my plant in early July and refrained from watering for about a week. When I did water, it seemed to go strait through the bottom of the pot. I pulled it out of the pot, there seemed to be more roots than soil! It looked like the roots had grown around the bottom of the pot. (Plastic pot it came in) I had not planned on repotting so soon but it seemed necessary. I loosened the roots as best I could but I did not cut them. I then potted in a plastic pot (a few inches bigger) with drainage holes and a tray, put about an inch of rock at the bottom and used standard all purpose potting soil. Then I took it to the bathtub and flushed it, mostly because I wanted to make sure it drained well and I didn't have pockets in the soil. I then stuck in in a bright window. (Keep in mind I did this all BEFORE reading this communities knowledgeable threads.) I did this mid July and a couple weeks ago I was rewarded with new growth! There are two leaves at the bottom that don't look too healthy, a couple black spots on each. One of the upper leaves has a hole on it. The plant was like this when I purchased it. All the other leaves are the usual dark green and seem healthy and firm as far as I can tell with my experience. The trunk is much stronger than when I first brought it home. Another concern is that there is something that looks like mold to me on the surface of the soil...is it mold? Weird. :( As we are approaching fall I'm thinking to next spring/summer and I definitely want to try to cut for propogation and future branching. I'm am eager student so if you have advice, bring it on! sorry for the novel :) also for the lighting in my photos.

Hi, Jocelyn. I'm happy to see you came back to share the progress and offer the kind words. Your tree has changed quite a bit from the first images you posted - strong work! "...... now branches A and B are growing a lot faster than the others bc they are closer to the sunlight which is a skylight. Branch D is moderate grower, E and F are toward the wall and not growing much - I think A and B may be shading them. Branch C has no leaves anymore. It used to have a couple but they fell off. That branch is totally shaded. My question is how many branches should I prune? All of them or only A and B, the big growers? Do I prune all the way down to two leaves again? Also, when I prune, is there a direction or exact placement of the cut I should do to encourage branching in one direction vs another? Just trying to figure out how to prevent shading of other branches...but maybe that’s due to the sunlight direction? And would you just cut off Branch C since there are no leaves, and if so, where do I make the cut? I'll try to go through and answer in the order your questions were asked, though I'm sure I'll get overzealous about one question and in expanding on it I'll likely answer other of your questions. I guess that's why the phrase "see above" was coined. As far as how many branches should be pruned, I think all that are growing strongly need pruning to force energy to the weaker branches. The branches growing moderately should be at least pinched (tip pruned to stop extension and force hack-budding. I would prune everything back in bounds.To establish where the boundary is, imagine a giant soup bowl, upside down, and settled over the trunk. Anything sticking out beyond that outline should be cut back to the outline, more specifically, to the leaf that is closest TO the outline w/o extending beyond it. This should produce back-budding in at least the 2 leaves closest to the cut. If the distal leaf heads in the wrong direction, which would be the direction where it will receive less light, you can cut back to the next proximal leaf (1 leaf closer to the trunk). If it was my tree, I would have no problem doing the following: Prune back to the outline as described above, then tip-prune every branch you didn't need to prune to keep it in bounds. Then, remove every leaf on the tree except the last (most distal) leaf on each branch and move the tree outdoors as soon as temps allow. Give it a week in dappled or open shade, then move it where it receives sun for a half day for a week before moving into full sun. This strategy will force lots of back-budding - just be careful not to over-water because transpirational water loss (due to reduction of the canopy) will decrease significantly. If you aren't using Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 regularly, the plant will show its appreciation if you do. If we didn't discuss that previously, we can do that. Oh - keep after the pinching, too. You can see by now, I would guess, how much difference pinching can make. Al

So that was one thing I have been thinking about... if I could do something like that next spring and take the top off and start the top section as a new plant? That will give me time to get propagation down (hopefully lol). Then let the bottom part grow up again? I am not sure how that works though? If I took the apex down a bit would it send out branches at 45 degrees to the pinch site, or grow them vertically? As you said earlier this is a tree haha, I forget since mine is so young and I am guessing years away from being a tree.