Would someone mind sharing if there is a way to get my flf back to the condition that it was in when I first brought it home? For the most part its been doing well, does not appear to be growing. When reduced to its elemental form, elevating your tree to a higher state of vitality is going to be a function of how good you are at providing cultural conditions in the plant's sweet spot, instead of close to or beyond the limits it's (genetically) programmed to tolerate. So, it can be done fairly easily, but you'll need to make some adjustments if the decline is to be reversed. If a plant is truly not growing, it is not making more energy than it's using, and that's a bad place to be ..... for a plant. When I brought it home in September it was much fuller near the base of each secondary branch. I have a good handle on watering and it is in a well draining mix from a greenhouse. When it was deemed time to water I would do so and then within a day or two it would drop a few leaves. This trend continued until I started adding foliage pro to each watering. I’m really annoyed by that because I was assured that the tree had plenty of fertilizer in the pot, I can even see the little green balls all over in the growing medium. I am thinking that I could have avoided it losing the ~30 leave it lost slowly after each watering before introducing foliage pro, back in December. Since using foliage pro I have had zero leaves drop. Some nutrients, like nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, and magnesium are mobile in the plant. That is to say the plant can "steal" these nutrients from existing foliage and move it to where it's needed to support branch extension and growth of new leaves. Other nutrients, like calcium and several micronutrients are regarded as immobile in tissues and must be in the nutrient stream at all times in order for normal growth to occur. If the FP fertilizer curbed leaf loss, it's a good bet the leaves were being exploited for their nutrients and other bio-compounds prior to being shed. I would like to know the best time and if someone could also give me an idea on where to make the cuts for the hard prune that would be great too. I live in Chicago and all posts I’ve read say that late June would be best for a hard prune. I’m willing to do a hard prune, I’m excited to do it and see the rewards. I just need more information on how to do it properly. Good to see you come pre-armed with some knowledge of how to work with the plant's natural rhythms in order to help the plant recover faster from any extensive work you might do - primarily repotting and hard pruning. I think we're gradually changing minds with regard to the idea that a plant's foliage is sacred and not to be cut off under any circumstances. Growth is often viewed as so special that the plants appearance is sacrificed on its altar. I would do the pruning around Father's Day/ Summer Solstice. As soon as the plant starts to back-bud - you can repot (if it needs it, and it probably does). The pruning will be really easy and possibly done in 2 stages, depending on how close to the trunk the foliage is on each branch. Why not send a set of 4 images of the tree, rotating the tree 90* for each subsequent image in early June. Basically, you'll choose the leader, then prune all second order branches back to 1 or 2 leaves. The leader will be one node higher than the second order branches. A hard pruning represents a setback for the plant because you're removing growth that's been paid for. Living in CHI, you'll want to let your tree grow wild (unpruned or pinched) from Sep 1 to at least Jun 1. Then, pinch religiously from Jun 1 to Sep 1, such that when ANY branch shows a 3rd leaf that's open and moving toward maturity, pinch that branch back to 2 leaves. Soon, you'll be removing branches to let light and air movement into the canopy because it's too full. I have to do that to ALL of my trees older than a couple of years for health and to slow growth. BTW - your tree appears to have a very good basic structure to build on - so, good choice. Al

Thank you for your kind comments. You asked about tools. One important tool is patience. One bible passage that is so appropriate for growers is found in Ecclesiastes 3:1, and says, "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven ...... a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted .....". Plants have natural rhythms that find them very strong in part of the growth cycle and weak in part of the growth cycle. Being in sync with the plant's natural rhythms means less stress on the plant and shorter recovery times. So a quick outline would be * Get the plant outdoors ASAP (when nights are reliably above 55*) * Let it build some strength/ energy reserves * Repot it around Memorial Day - first of June into an appropriate soil * Do the hard pruning 2-3 weeks later after growth has resumed * Between now & then - monitor soil moisture carefully with a wooden dowel rod or equal, flush the soil thoroughly the next time the plant needs watering and take steps to make sure there isn't too much excess water in the soil, withhold fertilizer until you see signs the plant is pushing (growth), keep it warm and in very bright light. If you commit to being careful about monitoring soil moisture, you can remove one side of the low trunk bifurcation (Y) now. I tend to like taper in trunk thickness, so my first choice would be to remove the thicker side of the Y and work with the thinner side, but if the thinner side is too far off the vertical axis, use the thick half of the Y. What you'll end up doing is cutting off one of the sides of the Y and leaving a long leafless stub. We're going to use that stub for mechanical advantage in pulling the side you leave into a more attractive position. Something similar to what you see in the pic below. See my plan to increase mechanical advantage so I can bend the trunk in the middle to a more favorable position? Which half of the Y is currently closer to vertical? Do you have a sense of which side of the Y looks more like a tree 'should' look, or as preference insofar as which side you'd rather work with? Al

Winter / early spring wouldn't be the best time for ficus (including your ficus lyrata). June, around Father's Day would be the best possible time for a repot. Repotting is best done when the tree is at its highest energy reserves and that happens right around the end of spring / beginning of summer. Youd be doing a full repot, correct? That would be where you remove all of the old soil and place in fresh soil. You can acclimate the tree to full sun gradually. Put it outside all day on a cloudy day and then slowly get it used to full sun. Some leaves might turn white and drop but a new flush of growth will emerge that'll handle full sun just fine. I do this with my large ficus benjamina every summer. Read these two threads. Great info. Your ficus lyrata is close enough in growing requirements to ficus benjamina. http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/1493078/ficus-trees-in-containers http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/2842847/container-soils-water-movement-and-retention-xxii?n=410

WOW ! your tree looks great... I too have a too tall fiddle fig leaf.. and i'm curious about how you trimmed it all the way down two years ago. I think I want to do that with mine. All have the leaves have fallen off except for the top foot of the tree.. so the rest of the 6 feet look barren. I've trimmed the top before with success, and have created little baby figs from my clippings -- I followed these instructions-- http://joeandcheryl.com/my-new-baby-fiddle-leaf-fig-tree/ But now I want to start over because my tree is grazing the ceiling. I plan on cutting off the tops of the braches and making more fig plants from them. My question is.. did you just trim yours all the way down to the dirt basically? How much of the stem did you leave?Thank you!