Two weeks ago, inspired by one too many beers and running across a spool of copper wire, I decided to mess with my tree. The canopy had been cut back two or three times but was sticking up vertically or at 45-degree angles and looked wrong with the low s-shaped trunk. So I pulled it down all around into an umbrella shape, and wow, I can see how it might look like something. Please give me some basic advice about wiring/training. I am not sure whether what I've done will have much permanent effect. 1. The material I am trying to move is mostly fully hardened wood (but flexible), at least six months to a year old, typically 1/8" or 3/16" dia. at the base. How long does it take to get this to stay put, or will it stay put? 2. One branch is 1/4" and pretty stiff. I have got it strapped down with a piece of electrical tape and it seems like the tension is still pretty high after two weeks. Is it possible to nick a branch in order to weaken it for training? (I am aware of the effect of girdling, but was wondering about cuts that would be a small fraction of the circumference.) 3. I have used wire that was too light for most of it and have probably wrapped too tightly and too closely. How often do I check for wire damage on the woody stems? The tree is growing, but moderately as it is in a bonsai pot. I'm seeing a few leaves and new stems budding out back on the bare branches that have been bent, and tip growth of 1-2".

Insofar as how it would impact root health, there is no difference between plastic and high-fired clay/ceramic. If you can see no crazing (myriad small cracks reminiscent of a fish net with small holes) in the glaze, you can eliminate anything toxic making its way from the pot to the grow medium. If you haven't fertilized or used any type of tonics, insecticides, leaf shine, detergents, etc., it's a very good bet you have unwittingly over-watered due to the fact there is no way for water to evaporate or be used by the plant as the new medium is not colonized by roots and remains a hostile environment to roots due to lack of oxygen. My suggestion would be to lift the plant from the pot to see it the lower reaches of the soil column are saturated. If so, see figure D below. Remove the soil from the new pot, place an over-turned pot in the bottom of the pot so it fits snugly, and cover the drain hole of the over-turned pot with something that won't rot (it does not need to allow water to drain through the hole in the over-turned pot, but it's ok to use a screen if you wish). Mix enough of the soil that falls away from the roots or remains in the large pot with an equal measure of perlite and fill to the top of the over-turned pot, then reposition your plant on top of the pot. and back-fill with the remaining soil w/o the extra perlite. The shaded areas in the images above represents perched water. By comparing D to A, you can see the over-turned pot significantly reduces the amount of excess (perched) water your soil will b e able to hold, so air will return the the soil much faster. The operational words for the moisture level of a grow medium is damp/moist, never wet/soggy. After having put the pot to work as ballast, start checking moisture levels with a "tell" you can make from a wooden dowel rod. It is far superior to a finger or a "moisture meter". More about using a 'tell': Using a 'tell' Over-watering saps vitality and is one of the most common plant assassins, so learning to avoid it is worth the small effort. Plants make and store their own energy source – photosynthate - (sugar/glucose). Functioning roots need energy to drive their metabolic processes, and in order to get it, they use oxygen to burn (oxidize) their food. From this, we can see that terrestrial plants need plenty of air (oxygen) in the soil to drive root function. Many off-the-shelf soils hold too much water and not enough air to support the kind of root health most growers would like to see; and, a healthy root system is a prerequisite to a healthy plant. Watering in small sips leads to avoid over-watering leads to a residual build-up of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil from tapwater and fertilizer solutions, which limits a plant's ability to absorb water – so watering in sips simply moves us to the other horn of a dilemma. It creates another problem that requires resolution. Better, would be to simply adopt a soil that drains well enough to allow watering to beyond the saturation point, so we're flushing the soil of accumulating dissolved solids whenever we water; this, w/o the plant being forced to pay a tax in the form of reduced vitality, due to prolong periods of soil saturation. Sometimes, though, that's not a course we can immediately steer, which makes controlling how often we water a very important factor. In many cases, we can judge whether or not a planting needs watering by hefting the pot. This is especially true if the pot is made from light material, like plastic, but doesn't work (as) well when the pot is made from heavier material, like clay, or when the size/weight of the pot precludes grabbing it with one hand to judge its weight and gauge the need for water. Fingers stuck an inch or two into the soil work ok for shallow pots, but not for deep pots. Deep pots might have 3 or more inches of soil that feels totally dry, while the lower several inches of the soil is 100% saturated. Obviously, the lack of oxygen in the root zone situation can wreak havoc with root health and cause the loss of a very notable measure of your plant's potential. Inexpensive watering meters don't even measure moisture levels, they measure electrical conductivity. Clean the tip and insert it into a cup of distilled water and witness the fact it reads 'DRY'. One of the most reliable methods of checking a planting's need for water is using a 'tell'. You can use a bamboo skewer in a pinch, but a wooden dowel rod of about 5/16” (75-85mm) would work better. They usually come 48” (120cm) long and can usually be cut in half and serve as a pair. Sharpen all 4 ends in a pencil sharpener and slightly blunt the tip so it's about the diameter of the head on a straight pin. Push the wooden tell deep into the soil. Don't worry, it won't harm the root system. If the plant is quite root-bound, you might need to try several places until you find one where you can push it all the way to the pot's bottom. Leave it a few seconds, then withdraw it and inspect the tip for moisture. For most plantings, withhold water until the tell comes out dry or nearly so. If you see signs of wilting, adjust the interval between waterings so drought stress isn't a recurring issue. Questions? Al

I've been thinking about this question and I'll try to capture what's been happening from my perspective: 1. Social Media - in addition to Instagram mentioned earlier, for several years, any decorating photo posted on Pinterest has had a perfect FLF in the living room window, in a home office, or next to a trendy new bed in a box. 2. New Plant Owners - the trend caught the attention of millennials and other generations who hadn't been thinking about house plants before. As a result, they've had many more very basic plant care questions and they're seeking answers online rather than in books, garden clubs, etc. 3. Questionable Advice - as ppl have started learning a few things, they've created blogs to offer advice to others who are just getting started. Often the blogs repeat one another and they only scratch the surface with tips like "mix Miracle Grow-brand potting soil, cactus soil, moisture control soil and whatever else you have handy" and "water exactly one cup every 7 days." This may work fine in the beginning, but down the road as issues emerge, it becomes hard to untangle cause and effect or know who to believe. 4. Tapla, etc. - Al and others here have done such a great job answering everyone's questions that threads from houzz and gardenweb eventually lead ppl to these boards through a search. But there's SO much information that it's hard to sort through, and it requires building a foundation of knowledge to understand the solutions. The [Container Soils - Water Movement and Retention XVIII[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/container-soils-water-movement-and-retention-xviii-dsvw-vd~1375349) thread alone is 70+ pages printed, not including all of the related discussions it has spawned. It's taken me a good year to have the discipline to read through as much as I have. I can't blame most people for not initially realizing how much great info is already here, buried below the surface. So if ppl who frequent these boards feel like they're seeing question after question about ficus lyratas, it's because they are, and because the internet can be its own worst enemy.

I just wanted to offer a follow-up report after taking the plunge, now that my ficus plants have survived their first summer outdoors. This past May, once temperatures were reliably ~60F/15C or above, I brought my ficus plants outdoors and placed them in the blazing sun on my 2nd floor balcony, without attempting to acclimate them. I gave them a hard prune (down to 2 or 3 leaves per branch, mostly, and cutting some of the remaining leaves across their width) and crossed my fingers. Here are some photos of 2 ficus elastica plants from last fall, before spending any time outdoors. I wanted to correct this 'trident' shape on the larger plant, and promote some lower, multi-directional growth on both: (plant #1 , circa autumn 2021) (plant #2, circa autumn 2021) A few days after I placed them outside this spring, I hadn't noticed any leaf burn, so I thought I might have gotten lucky and they'd transition painlessly. But soon after I witnessed dramatic scalding and the loss of all remaining leaves — I took some deep breaths and tried to keep my faith! And sure enough, I soon saw dramatic back budding on the plants' trunks, and new growth points sprouting in almost every axil of every new leaf. I tried to follow Al's advice to tip-prune every 3rd or 4th new leaf (depending on direction). Here's what they look like now: (plant #1, late September '22) (plant #2, late September '22) (two smaller ficus benghalensis plants which received the same treatment) The new leaf growth was smaller than I had expected, and on the ficus elasticas, a little redder in color, which surprised me — but I guess it's to be expected given the dramatic pruning and change in light levels. The overall mass of the plants didn't increase dramatically, but the number of new growth points (and thus potential future plant mass) has. I'm getting ready to move them back inside for the winter now that temperature is dropping. Curious to know how much leaf shedding/loss of new growth I'll have — they'll be in front of a south-facing bay window but it'll still be much less light than they've grown accustomed to. My understanding is I can refrain from pinching any fall/winter growth and instead plan on pruning any such leggy growth next spring/summer when they go back outside. Sorry for rambling – I just wanted to thank all of you for your advice and encouragement and hopefully offer some evidence that this 'nuclear option' of throwing potted ficus straight out into full-sun is indeed a viable one.