Shawn, the plant's condition is a huge factor in deciding whether to repot now, when its energy reserves are low. How does it look? A picture of the whole thing would be very helpful in figuring out what's going wrong. The rule, as I understand it from Al's writings, is to wait to repot until June unless the plant is declining enough that it will fail before then. Repotting is stressful, and repotting when the plant has low reserves means slower recovery and growth. It would be better if you did what what you could to improve its condition so it can build reserves over the winter.

I strongly disagree. A full repot is actually REQUIRED if your plant is to be given full opportunity to function as close as possible to its genetic potential. The effects of repotting are short lived, so even though a repotted plant can be expected to sulk for a week or two before it resumes a much higher growth rate and level of vitality than its potted up counterpart, by the end of summer the repotted plant will have far surpassed the plant potted up in growth, and it will be healthier - all else being equal. This is F benjamina in the process of being repotted. It's been growing in a nursery can for a few years, so needs an extreme root reduction and flattening of the root system over time to allow it to fit in a shallow pot. ^^^ You can see by the large pile of soil under the plant that a good deal of soil/perimeter roots have already been removed and the solid mat that was the bottom 1/3-1/2 of the root mass has been removed and discarded.^^^ After removing most of the soil, I'll remove the large roots that serve almost no purpose (other than plumbing and anchorage). Under this mass, as you'll be able to see from the next image, are some VERY thick roots that I'll remove with very little thought about the process. ^^^ End result. In 1 or 2 more repots, the large roots under the trunk will be 'gnawed' off with a special tool designed for that purpose. Eventually, all roots will be radiating horizontally from the widest point of the trunk flare. Please note: I'm not suggesting that everyone should adopt root pruning to this extreme as a habit. I don't - you shouldn't. It just serves as a good illustration of how much root work a healthy tree is able to tolerate. After performing several thousand repots, I've gained a sense of what a tree will handle. For tropicals, it's based on how well they over-wintered indoors and their current level of vitality and growth rate when I repot in June. For temperate deciduous trees, the determination re how much root mass can be removed is based on their condition in late fall as they approached dormancy. I can say though, that when I do repot, the volume of roots removed would always make someone uninitiated to the practice unnecessarily fear for the tree's well-being. Al

"..... my main question or concern is that it seems as though someone had tried to ”notch” the plant, and I am wondering if it may have been done prematurely, and if it will cause significant harm to the plant since it was cut from the top of one of the two main stems of the plant." There is no evidence of attempted notching in the images you provided, but perhaps we just can't see the notch. You already asked about the trunk being chopped, and I explained what to expect as a result of that recent action and assured you no harm will result. You will soon see several branches occurring in the crotch (axil) of leaves immediately below the point where the trunk was chopped. Note the chopped trunk and new branches growing in axils of 2 leaves. Your plant will do the same as the result of the trunk(s) being severed. There is a growth regulator synthesized at the tip of every branch where the extension (lengthening) growth occurs. Auxin, the growth regulator suppresses growth of side/lateral branching. When the branch tip is removed, the reduction in the amount of that growth regulator flowing toward only the roots eliminates the chemical's ability to suppress growth of side branches. One of the new side branches will serve as the new leader/ upper part of the trunk. This maple clearly shows the scar where I chopped the trunk, which was about 8 feet tall when I chopped it back. The new trunk, above the chop, is a branch that I wired into place. See the same tree about 2 years later. You cannot even tell it was chopped, but in fact it was chopped 4 times. Bonsai practitioners chop their trees back because trees that taper radically, a thick base and thin/twiggy top makes them look old and more natural. Here is another tree ^^^ that has been chopped once just below the thin branch with the wire on it. The next chop will be immediately above the thin branch, but for the time being the part above the thin branch is serving as a sacrifice branch. It is helping to thicken the trunk to provide more taper, only to be removed later, thus the term 'sacrifice'. There is also slight browning on some leaves which i figured were due to underwstering but i think i figured out the watering so far. I see no damage that definitively says 'over-watering. What damage I see appears to be primarily mechanical injury (think 'bruising'), and maybe just a little bit of sunburn. Al

The contrast between "people time" and "plant time" can cause the grower some anxiety and frustration until the grower realizes there's a distinct difference and makes the adjustment by giving in to the idea that a plant has its own ideas about how long it should take to bounce back from adversity. Fortunately, the best form of resolution is usually no more complicated than procuring a few more plants so they can work as a team to satisfy your need to nurture. SOIL: I have perlite so I will add in more of that. Not sure if this is a bad idea, but I do have gravel I could mix in If you decide to include some gravel, use it in the bottom 6" of soil where it will displace the organic fraction of your medium that would normally be filled with water. This is a form of ballast. Don't use it as a layer, just mix it half and half with the bottom 6" of soil where the perched water table (excess water) resides. This in itself will reduce the amount of perched water your soil will hold by 1/2), and my neighbor has bark in her backyard that she said I could have some of to mix in if that's a good option for now? Depends ..... all bark is not created equal. Size and type of bark is very important. BALLAST/WICK: In reading through your posts I understand there are several ways to set these up, but I have an extra terra cotta and plastic pot so I figure this might be easiest? You mentioned covering the drainage hole in this post That reference was to the overturned pot you would be using as a form of ballast such that the rim of the pot would be down and the drain hole would face up. You don't want soil to drop through the drain hole in the ballast pot, so cover it. , but I also noticed [here[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/dealing-with-water-retentive-soils-dsvw-vd~1415041) you said another option would be to leave the hole open and put soil underneath so that it acts as a wick. That is the pot-in-pot technique where the main pot is nested into another pot and rests on top of the soil in the lower pot. This soil acts as a wick. If the soil in the lower pot is deeper than the ht of the perched water table, ALL perched water should move from the upper pot into the lower pot. For this application, there should be nothing over the drain hole(s) in the upper pot - the one the plant is in. Would you suggest one over another in my situation? I would go for the pot as ballast + the gravel in the bottom 6" of soil as added ballast, and even a wick if you like (in the lower pot). I have two options for pots to put inside as ballasts, but I'm not sure which would be the best option. The terra cotta pot looks like it may not take up enough room to help with limiting PWT, but the plastic one may be too large? The plastic one is great - cover the drain hole in it. Ideally, there would be an inch or so of soil above the ballast pot. Fill in the sides with the 50/50 gravel soil mixture up to the top (former bottom) of the overturned pot - cover it with an inch of soil with no gravel - set the plant on the soil - fill in around the edges. As long as you're taking steps to eliminate perched water, it doesn't matter how large your pot is. You can put your plant in a 55 gallon drum if you like, w/o concern you'll be over-potting. ...... once I repot the plant into the better mixture and add the ballast, should I water the plant again or hold off given the amount of moisture already present in the soil? Plants do best when the soil is evenly damp/moist - never wet/soggy. Skip watering if your entire soil mass is moist. Keep in mind, with the steps you will have taken to eliminate perched water, over-watering shouldn't be a problem, as long as you're reasonable. You're making a soil serviceable that otherwise wouldn't be considered as such by a very large fraction of effectual growers, so it's best to try to minimize potential limitations. Use a 'tell'. If possible - site your plant away from heat sources, but in a warm spot with plenty of light. If possible, use a room humidifier and keep humidity in the 45-55% range. I keep my basement grow room at 55% by using a combination of home-made passive evaporative set-ups and 2 ultrasonic humidifiers. I have a R/O water system, so almost never have to clean the humidifiers. To eliminate potential for bacterial issues, I add an ounce of H202 (hydrogen peroxide) every time I refill the reservoirs. Al