Don't read this as snotty, because it's not - it;s your tree, so do whatever you feel comfortable with. If it was my tree, I'd go all the way, bite the bullet & completely bare root so I can remove offending roots in the middle of the root mass. Those are limiting your plant now or will be in the future. There is no way around that fact other than by getting into the roots and correcting the problem. This offers the advantage of making it much easier to prune roots in subsequent sessions. If you decide to go forward with the bare-rooting, I can offer more specific help or refer you to threads where I advised others on the same procedure. You can always change the objective if you think it's going to be more than you're willing to handle & only do part of the work. I've worked on a LOT of trees where the roots were too contorted and intertwined to completely correct in one session, but I eventually manage to completely bare root everything I grow that's woody. Ficus love the heat, but they don't especially like their root temperatures much above 90* - or their growth slows dramatically. You'll probably be ok to go ahead now if you shade the plant, even if temperatures are higher than 90* - the evaporative cooling from the moisture in the soil will lower soil temps 10-15% below ambient if the pot is shaded. W/o seeing your tree, I'm guessing that if it's in a 10 gallon pot now, when your done repotting it could probably go back in a 5 gallon pot. Certainly 10 gallons is more than enough to sustain what you describe (unless I'm missing something) for many years. Please be sure not to over-pot - especially if you're using a peat-based commercially prepared soil. While there are things you can do to help deal with an overly water retentive soil, it's better for the plant if you don't have to. Al

After spending half an hour on the following post it occurred to me that a houseplant forum search for "nicking" might yield more accurate information. Sure enough, I found several threads containing Al's explanations, but I spent so much time on mine that I refuse to delete it!!!!! Here are a few of the threads. The nicking discussions aren't long but I think Al's post on the first link explains the effects of nicking vs pruning. Use the search box at the top of the page to find even more threads. http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/1458989/fiddle-leaf-fig-question?n=1 http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/1465570/pruning-ficus-lyrata-to-branch?n=24 ******************* My now-superfluous post: Ah, I see; most people seem to call that nicking, not slitting. The reason you haven't found info on it is that few people do it, but Al has gone into it the few times he's been asked. I'll describe it as best I can from what I remember of his posts about it. Anyway, you would use a sharp sterilized (just in case) knife to cut a small horizontal wedge through the cambium (basically the living usually green layer under the bark) right above a leaf node. Nicking (or pruning) above a node stops the inhibitory hormone from the top of the tree from reaching it, letting it respond to hormones that direct it to grow. The same thing happens when you prune. Whether you prune or nick, the amount of back-budding you'll get depends on the plant's condition. IMO, if the stress that caused your ficus to drop leaves still exists, nicking or pruning won't have much (if any) effect so long as the plant is still under the stress that made it drop so many leaves. I'd guess that's because the weakened plant isn't producing the hormones that would stimulate growth above ground. That's been my experience. My ficuses didn't respond at all to tip-pinching last fall when they were still weak, but now after months of proper care and increased spring sunlight they're growing like crazy, including a lot of back-budding far back on its once-bare branches, without any intervention at all from me. I think that's an accurate description of what I've read!

Your plant would do better if you watered according to the plant's needs instead of according to the calendar. Use a wooden tell, stuck deep into the pot to "tell" you when it's time to water. I'll leave something I wrote about using a 'tell' at the end of the post. In addition to over-watering, the reduction in light between the nursery/greenhouse where your plant was cultivated and where it's currently sited can cause leaf loss, though it's unlikely the leaves being shed would look like those in your images. Also, a high level of dissolved solids in the soil solution (salts from tap water and fertilizers, can produce symptoms as illustrated either actively or passively. Plants grown under heavy photo load (bright light) and good soil moisture levels can be fertilized at luxury rates without issues. The same plants that thrive with high light and high fertility can present as being over-fertilized just by moving them to a spot with lower light levels, so you should plan to flush your soil in the very near future if you haven't been doing that when you water. If you need help with that - just ask. 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 air (oxygen) in the soil to drive root function. Many off-the-shelf soils hold too much water and not enough air to support good root health, which is a prerequisite to a healthy plant. Watering in small sips leads to a build-up of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil, 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. Al

Thanks Al, if I understand you correctly, you are saying the current notches are too far from the leaf axils to effectively limit the polar flow of IAA to the lateral buds of interest. How far from the leaf axil do you usually notch for greater success? I can certainly create a second notch closer to the leaf axil. I looked into the question of apical dominance in plants (very briefly) while waiting for shuttle this morning. It seems the precise physiologic and molecular mechanisms that regulate lateral bud release and growth are still being characterized. The literature suggests multiple regulatory hormones besides IAA play critical roles in lateral bud release, and I wonder if any of these have found their way to commercial use for everyday consumers (either as hormones, hormone inhibitors, or synthetic agonists/antagonists in the signaling pathways of these regulatory hormones)? You have a lot of practical experience on container gardening and best positioned to know how growers are incorporating scientific advances to the cultivation of FLF.