in the last pic the stake obscures the trunk: do you have any branching on it ? how many leaves total? small pip pic - is 'what you would like it to look like' or what you have? separated plants: those 3 leaf stalks look very weak to me - i would not prune them yet either. and especially not now, unless you are in zone 10 :) and will have warmth/good sun for sev months. or you have a conservatory to grow them in. i read that it is not advisable to prune off the branch leaving less then 2 leaves on it - it might die off. you need to get them growing next year and producing more leaves and then prune back. i much prefer multi-trunks for lyrata in the same pot - the trunks will remain rather thin always and bottom leaves will eventually drop after many years - leaving just top branches. it is much easier to maintain a full look with many in one pot. this year i notched 3 branches on my ficus in beginning of july and by aug they did not produce buds yet. i was surprised, as before twice i had buds popping within 2-3 weeks. so i pruned them anyway - and i had 2-3 buds formed within 3 weeks after pruning. i have tip-pruned before - and it mostly produced single bud, with very few exceptions. while with notching done 1 mo before pruning i get multi-buds, always. i do notch not just the bark but like for air-layering: about 1/3 of the stem at an angle. then when i prune, i just finish the cut. on each branch i now have 2 opposing buds growing well with 2 leaves each within 1 month of buds appearing, but the 3rd buds are just sitting there. it's good enough, though. i have to say that when i prune off the branch i do prune it way back, at may be half. i try to get a 6" -8" stem for rooting with 5 leaves on top. and then i root the cut off usually without any leaves dropping tented. so my branches where they produce buds are may be 4-5 years old. they have bark on them.

Looks good - like all will be well, given the new back-budding we expected ..... and no big deal if the existing leaves are shed. Keep a close eye on watering. The leaves in the process of being shed will be walled-off from the rest of the plant by an abscission layer forming where the leaf attaches to the branch. This new layer forms a barrier through which no sap or water will pass. That means the tree will need much less water. You know about the 'tell', so you know how to minimize soil saturation by using that to determine when to water. You can start fertilizing as soon as those new branches start to extend. I can't remember if you said you got the FP 9-3-6? Strong work! Al

I can try to relocate it to be right in front of the window if that might help? That would be helpful and help the plant move closer to natural back-budding as opposed to forced back-budding by pruning. Can also limit leaf loss if it is currently being driven by low light conditions. More on back-budding later. Just fertilized the other day after not having done so for a while. I used the Parkwood All Purpose Plant Food, 20-20-20. Watered with a 2L dilution of the mixture. Again - helpful. I noticed the slightly chlorotic (yellow-green) coloring and thought if probably was suffering from low fertility, particularly nitrogen. The 20-20-20 is a 1:1:1 ratio fertilizer, same as 10-20-10 and 14-14-14. Your plant uses about 6X as much N as P, and about 3/5 as much K as N, so 1:1:1 ratio fertilizers aren't the best choice, for two reasons. One is they force you to use more P and K than necessary to meet the plants N needs. 'Unnecessary' fertilizer in the soil solution makes it more difficult for the plant to take up water and nutrients. Also, if you're not flushing thoroughly, using fertilizers that don't closely match the ratio at which the plant is actually using nutrients can quickly cause skewing of the ratio actually in the soil. Think of a car assembly line. If in the supply chain they could only get parts in packages of 20 engines, 20 wheels, and 20 headlights, they will soon be driven out of the factory because of all the stored parts. Better if the packages container 80 wheels, 40 headlights, and 20 engines. Fertilizers with a 3:1:2 NPK ratio come closest to providing nutrients at the exact ratio your plant uses them, and Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 is the best 3:1:2 ratio fertilizer I've found to date. It also contains ALL nutrients essential to normal growth (yours probably lacks Ca, Mg, and several micronutrients) and it doesn't derive it's N from urea, as your fertilizer does, so it's easier on plants and you don't get the coarse growth you get with ureic forms of N. I let the moisture meter get to dry” in the soil all around. Moisture meters don't read moisture levels - they read electrical conductivity. Clean the probe and dip it in a cup of distilled (deionized) water and you'll note it reads "DRY". Sprinkle some table salt into the water (add some ions for electrical conductivity) and watch the needle go to "WET". It's better to use a tell so we know what moisture conditions are at the bottom of the pot. The commonly parroted advice that you should "water when the top inch or two of soil is dry" or "when the soil feels dry to the second knuckle of your index finger" are perfect examples of poor advice because the ensure you'll be over-watering if your pot is more than about 5" deep. More on a "tell" below. I try my best to let the entire soil mass is soaked and allow the water to exit the drain hole. Good, it's critical to keeping the TDS (salt) level in the soil from getting too high, and it keeps the ratio of nutrients in the soil from becoming skewed. Skewed fertilizer ratioos commonly cause antagonistic deficiencies - an excess of nutrient A makes it difficult for the plant to take up enough of nutrient B. All excess water drains out of the pot - it does not sit in the water. Good. Improving cultural conditions will make the plant less reluctant to back-bud naturally. If you put itr outdopors in dappled or open shade, it would likely back-bud somewhat w/o pruning. The added light, air movement, and appropriate fertility are the biggest contributors to natural back-budding. The relatively higher N level of FP 9-3-6 fertilizer would also be helpful. Your plant needs a pruning anyway, and a hard pruning will definitely force back-budding, but you need to be willing to prune it hard. It's not the risk you think it is; so, if you're concerned, ask for pictures of some of the work I've done on ficus trees to force back-budding. I'll wait until I hear back from you before I go any further. This might also be helpful. 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. Al

OK, it's nice that you're done but again, like Kat, we're sharing our space with our plants. So we do have to consider our brain's response to the light and the plant's. Which is not "misinformation" if you took the time to read the scientific study above. Alas, given the response, I'm going to assume you haven't done so yet but will later. Red light in the 5:1 dominant ratio to blue or 10:1 ratio to blue tends to do best. Not with blue dominant. I do have plenty of other studies with other types of plants that pretty much show the same and, of course, can quote the solar spectrum to no end (at Earth's surface, of course, in space it's somewhat different). We also weren't discussing repotting or potting up in this thread, we're discussing cutting, so I'm not entirely certain where that confusion is coming from without making some perhaps unpleasant assumptions. I'll avoid doing so for now. Cutting would, of course, not precisely be the best to be doing in December either, but fortunately...well, this is January, for starters. Nearly February. And of course, the plant will simply wait and send leaves at the proper time. Normally I'd say to leave the leaves, but... As noted, I do enhance light. A great deal. If Kat does so--following moving the plant as both of us suggested to the window, plus enhancing light with her plant light and increasing wattage--that will increase growth. Perfect? No. But it'll work and I've certainly done it many times, so if Kat has a reason she needs to cut things back now, she can if she has to. Now, as to "misinformation," no, it's simply not the way you do things. And perhaps not optimal, but entirely workable. I used my shears again yesterday. It will, as always, work out fine. One would expect misinformation to misfire. It doesn't. I can't say I appreciate the invective, but at least compared to some around here, yours is minor.