Watergal - Well, fertilizer timing can have a profound effect on trees that are in the ground. Also, you've heard the axiom "First year they sleep. Second year they creep. Third year they leap." It could easily go back to part of what is being discussed here too. The newly planted plants had to depend on roots confined to the space of a nursery container initially. Over time, and through an expanded (expanding?) root system, roots gain greater access to the building blocks (nutrients & water) they need to manufacture their food. As this occurs, the branches extend more & they show an increase in the size & number of leaves. I'll suggest that this is likely the natural habit of this tree and you should expect it to continue as long as cultural conditions remain favorable. You can reduce this tendency by timing your fertilizer applications (if you know they are necessary - they're probably not) so that they are applied after the tree goes into its first rest after the spring flush of growth. Leaves will have matured by then, and branch extension will have slowed considerably, so fertilizing with N will have less impact on the tree form or growth habit. The tree will also be changing its focus from tapping its energy reserves to build leaves & branches, to saving some of that energy by forming layers of cells and storing photosyntyhate in the roots and cambial tissues (fattening up for its winter rest). We're a little off subject here, but not too bad. I hope Grice forgives us. ;o) Grice - "o/a" growth = "overall" growth. When I mention it, I'm thinking about the energy the tree is able to produce with what it can extract from the soil (and air). This growth potential is always inhibited by tight roots. You can see evidence of it in any container grown Ficus carica (hardy fig). The leaf bundle scars will be increasingly shorter as the tree becomes more crowded in the container, and when it's repotted, potted-up, or planted out, the distance between scars will dramatically increase. It is not so apparent on tropical or sub-tropical trees, but if I pointed it out to you, you'd see it readily. Al

Hi, Tammy - I think I noted not far upthread, that one of the first signs of a root bound tree is the lack of branch extension and loss of interior foliage. The 'tufted' look is so characteristic, that I eliminated a tree the owner expected to win the 'expert class' in a bonsai show I judged this summer, because I could tell the roots were very constricted, just by looking at the tree. When the condition is allowed to get particularly severe, roots wrapped around other roots can completely cut off the flow of water and nutrients to the upper parts of the tree. Trees are somewhat different from species to species in how tightly they adhere to the arrangement that root A feeds branch A, root B feeds branch B, and so on, so that when root A dies, branch A dies. All trees follow this connection to some degree, so it's normal for individual branches originally fed by roots that were later compromised by tight conditions to be shed for lack of the tree's ability to move water and nutrients through the compromised conductive roots. Ideally, we would correct the root issues during a full repot. The problem with that scenario is your tree sounds severely stressed and unlikely to be able to recover from such a drastic procedure for two reasons, the stressed and weakened condition being one, and the the other being that the timing is bad with the tree just going into winter. If you can be patient, I'm not at all concerned about the trees being lopsided. We can build a tree from whatever remains viable for the long term. My focus would remain fixed on getting the tree to a state of vitality that will allow us to start serious work on the tree w/o killing it. Because you just acquired the trees, there is probably no way for you to determine how badly the soluble salts situation is - how much is in the soil. Safest is to assume the salt level is higher than it should be and the soil should be flushed. This is pretty much a standard suggestion for struggling trees. It sort of 'resets' the level of nutritional reserves in the soil, flushing out all the excess soluble that we can't even guess at the concentrations of, and replacing them with a low dose of fertilizer. This ensures that the nutrients are available at a low level that won't interfere with water uptake. Let me know if you're good with: * Flushing the soil very thoroughly. Flush 5-10 times with room or ambient temperature water, using at least the volume of the container for each flush. * Cutting off the bottom 2-3 inches of the root mass and making deep vertical slits in the root mass at 3-4" intervals with a utility knife. * Potting up, using a soil very similar to the one your plant is in now, for now. (We can work around this if you'd rather not invest in such large pots. Let me know.) * Inserting a wick through the drain hole before you pot up. Ideally, you would melt another hole through the bottom near the side and insert the wick there. * After you water, tilt the container at a 45* angle with the wick down. The wick should dangle 2-3" below the container, and not touch the effluent (drained water). This will remove MUCH more water from the soil, and allow you to water copiously and flush the soil each time you water. You'll be flushing the fertilizer out of the soil, along with any accumulating salts, so plan on fertilizing with a half strength dose of 24-8-16 or 12-4-8 (both 3:1:2 ratios) about every 3-4 times you water. Don't worry - there is no danger of over-fertilizing if you can follow this plan. It's a very healthy way to approach nutrition management. It assures a low concentration of nutrients in the right ratio at all times, which is actually a very admirable goal for your nutritional plan no matter where your plants are in their growth cycle. * Keep your watering under control. Only water on an 'as needed' basis. Wait until the wick feels dry, or the soil is dry when you test it at the drain hole, or a sharpened dowel or skewer comes out clean and dry after you insert it deep into the roots. * Keep the plants in the best light you can provide, and try to keep soil temperatures above 65*, up to 80. * Guard against sunburn. If you think/know the trees were in low light, acclimate them to high light levels gradually - over a period of a week or two. You can read through this thread & see if you spot anything I might have missed, based on similar advice to others. To be honest, I've been talking to so many people about their Ficus trees over the last month or so (not just those from GW) that it's hard to remember everything. Be sure to raise any questions or concerns, and ask for clarification where/if needed. Take good care. Al

The first bend in the trunk is result of a previous pruning. I noticed that when I was looking at the first images. Looks like the trunk bifurcated (split to form a 'Y') at that point and one side of the bifurcation was pruned off. In mid-June, the lowest branch marked in yellow should be cut back to 4 leaves. The long branch moving left/ marked yellow in the image above, and the branch moving right/ marked yellow should also be pruned back to 2 leaves. The leader, above these 2 branches and marked in yellow, should be pruned back to a leaf that points in the direction you want the leader to grow. This is called 'directional pruning'. Example: With the above pruning cut made, the new branch (shows as a leaf only, but it's a new branch) in the axil of the leaf on the right will want to grow to the right. If you wanted the new leader to move left, you would prune lower, to just above the leaf on the left. A cut above the leaf attached to the severed part would give rise to a branch growing away from the grower. Because there are other forces in play, like phototropism (tendency for plants to bend toward the brightest light source), there is no guarantee the branch will grow where you wish, so you might need to encourage the new branch that forms in the axil of the leader's top leaf to grow where YOU want it to. I mentioned this already, but I'll reiterate that your tree will respond to pruning with a much higher degree of enthusiasm if you do the pruning A) while the tree's energy reserves are highest, and B) when the tree's current ability to carry on photosynthesis is peaking, both of which will occur during the summer solstice (21 June). 'Father's Day' is easy to remember. If you intend to repot, do it at the same time you prune. While you could probably remove a little soil to cut through (2 cuts) the kinked root that emerges from and returns too the soil, I would do it at the same time you prune the top. Reason: Pruning the top decreases the volume of foliage the roots must work to keep hydrated. It also makes it less likely that a branch on the same side of the tree where the kinked root is attached will die. When a tree is unable to keep certain parts hydrated, it sheds those parts. Unfortunately, they seem to always choose to shed parts the grower feels are essential to the o/a composition/ shape/ style of the tree. Some trees, like junipers/ yews/ arborvitae/ .... , develop a dedicated relationship between individual roots and branches, such that damage to a particular root will kill a particular branch. Notice the live veins connecting roots to individual branches below: This tree ^^^ has 4 branches and 4 live veins. Other trees lack the direct relationship between particular roots and branches. For the genus Ficus, the relation is moderate, but the lower a branch is (and the shorter the tree is) the greater the likelihood that death of a branch or root will result in the dieback of it's counterpart on the opposite side of the root to shoot connection. When serious about earning a green thumb, the largest step a container gardener can take in that direction will come from understanding how water behaves in container media and what that means to the health of your plants' root systems; this, because issues with root function and/or health cause the most problems by far, with some of them seemingly unrelated to root health. Two examples that lend support to the later contention are infections by disease pathogens and insect predation due to a less than robust metabolic rate, caused by limited root function or poor root health. A healthy plant will remain forever elusive unless and until we are able to maintain root systems in an elevated state of vitality (health). Al

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