I bought a Hydrofarm FLCDG125D Fluorowing Compact Fluorescent System to supplement the light. I will go reading on the artificial light board, but if anyone has any advice for position and duration of using the light while the plant is in a slow growing period would be very much appreciated. I don't necessarily want to disrupt the plants yearly cycle or fool it into thinking this is spring or summer. I just want to make sure it can make plenty of food for itself. I've got all the ingredients for gritty mix on the way. I'm not re-potting the fig yet as I said, but I desperately need to re-pot the yucca and two snake plants so they will be my first gritty mix experiments. I love feeling like a mad scientist. I've got Zoo Med Reptile Bark Fir Bedding coming for the pine fines, will get a bag of napa floor-dry tomorrow, and have some #2 cherry stone coming in the mail. (Is this OK?) I read Al Tapla recommend either grani-grit or #2 cherrystone as 1 part of the gritty mix and I hope I ordered something that works. I've also got some dyna-gro foliage pro on the way. Not going to fertilize the fig until I know that I can properly drain the soil, but will start using it on the plants that I re-pot this week. The one very badly shriveled and browned leaf on the fig (the one with the burned looking edge pictured above) dropped today. It was much smaller than the rest of the leaves, a little yellow, and near the interior of the plant. I guess I won't be concerned unless the plant starts dropping more healthy looking leaves. I turned it a full 90 degrees a few days ago. The foliage is very unbalanced. Looks like the previous owner never rotated it so the leaves on one side are noticeably smaller and paler than the other side. I think I will leave it like that for a couple of weeks and then start doing 1/4 turns every week or two. Should I be concerned about more leaf drop from turning it like this? I'm worried that the side that's used to getting more light will protest. When I flush the soil, should I stuff a wick very deeply into the soil from the new drainage hole, or does it just need to be in contact with the soil at the bottom? Thank you so much for your time if you've read this far!

Fennel - Reposted per your request. I hope you can see it. If not, send another message and I'll send it direct.I think you're on the right track in your thinking, but for the sake of full disclosure: - It's best to repot it in early summer. Technically not quite true. Summer STARTS Jun 21. In most locales, repotting should be done by then, but you can repot even i8n northern US States into Early Aug with good results. - It needs fast draining soil no matter what and likes low nutrient content like in the gritty mix. There ARE work-arounds that allow you to use soils that would be wholly unsatisfactory w/o the work-around. Ballast, wicks, and several other tricks can be used to limit how much 'excess' water a pot can hold. - I have to keep the fine roots wet during repotting. True - It shouldn't be fertilized again until it starts new growth. True - It's good to trim the roots 30% or more. I'd limit my first foray into root pruning to removing 1/3-1/2 of the roots, total ...... and I'd concentrate on large roots that are problematic for one reason or another and not connected to the base of the trunk. However, I still have some newbie questions. - I live in zone 10b (Malibu, USA). Should I still wait until June to repot it? Can you manage to hold off until Memorial Day? That's when I would do it if I lived in Malibu. - The soil. This is my biggest question. I understand gritty mix would give my tree the most potential but I highly dislike the idea of completely depending on plant food and watering as often as I've seen gritty mix users say they have to water (every 3-4 days even). Is there perhaps a different ratio or set of ingredients I could mix to give the soil only a little less potential but a lot more leniency in those areas? I wish there was a list somewhere of the detailed benefits and pitfalls of different common soil ingredients. If you're going to do things to the gritty mix that eliminate the reasons you would go to the extra effort to begin with, push it to the back of your mind. It simply doesn't make sense from the perspective of economics or effort to make an expensive soil you might as easily have made with less effort and reduced outlay. I'd be thinking of something like the 5:1:1 mix, which is based on a high % of coarse ingredients, but still holds more water than the gritty mix. - Root pruning. Again, I'm new to plant care. How do you tell which roots are are healthy and which are sickly or dead beneath the soil line? You'll know. Healthy = white or tan, not black, dark brown/ slimy. Am I correct that I should prune the large roots without a lot of feeder roots? Yes What should I look for beyond that? Roots that point back toward the center of the root mass, roots growing straight up or down, hooked/ encircling/ girdling roots. I've seen people straight up hack inches off the rootball. Is that much removal and abrasion very beneficial to the tree or can I just gently separate the roots and cut off obvious problem ones? I alway start by hacking a significant fraction of the lower root mass off - often as much as 75%, but that's not meant as a suggestion to you. How much you can safely remove will come with experience. I was uneasy enough with root pruning as it was and then found some even more disconcerting posts about how foliage may need pruning also to a level the new roots can support. I definitely don't want to prune my roots to a level near enough to likely need leaf pruning. It's still a short tree and every leaf is healthy. FWIW - a ficus will alway benefit from pruning when you repot if you concentrate your pruning efforts at the top of the tree, which ALWAYS robs the bottom of the tree of its due, in terms of food and energy. I can say, without question, that if you continue to progress in your proficiency at growing trees in containers, at some point you will be regularly pruning at least the top of almost all apically dominant trees when you repot, for more than 1 reason. - Keeping the roots wet. How do I do this? Should I keep a light shower on them? Should I dunk them in a bucket of water every minute? Could someone please suggest an exact method and interval to do this right? I normally work over a tub of water and dunk the roots as often as necessary to keep them wet at all times. When it's cool/ humid/ shady, that might be every 2-3 minutes. Hot/ windy/ sunny = every 30 seconds or so. You can also use a hose & pressure nozzle to 'blast' soil off roots. This ^^^ fits on the hose end. Adding a shut-off helps save water. - Watering. Should I water it right after repotting? Yes Does the tree need to be kept in extra moist or extra dry soil before or after the report? The fraction of soil that holds the roots needs to be damp - not wet or dry - damp. If your soil is appropriate, you can easily water a couple of times each day to ensure roots get enough moisture w/o suffering from soil saturation. Also, I've seen mention of people soaking their ingredients/soil before mixing/potting into it but I don't understand it. What's that part about? Some soils, when they get dry, become hydrophobic (water repellent). To correct, make mud from about 1/3 of the soil you'll need for the repot, then mix in the dry soil. Do this well before you start the repot or transplant. By the time you need the soil, diffusion of moisture in the soil will have 'broken' any tendency toward hydrophobia. - Fertilizing. Should I fertilise some time before the repot? Give it more strength somehow? Yes. Fertilize appropriately right up until the day you repot, and resume as soon as you see new growth being pushed. I bought some Foliage Pro 9-3-6 recently but haven't been fertilising at all since I got the tree; just been giving it filtered water. You should fertilize regularly all year long - varying the dosage and/or the intervals between applications in response to what part of the growth cycle your tree is in. I often fertilize at more than 2.5x the recommended maximum dose when cultural conditions support that practice. You can learn more about fertilizing containerized plants if you click me. - Pot size. I read these trees enjoy small pots False. Read this. and can even be repotted into the same pot after root pruning True but I think mine is pushing it. It's over 2.5 feet tall in a 6-inch pot. I'm definitely going 8-inch minimum—but would it be better to go for a 10-inch? How large a container ‘can’ or ‘should’ be, depends on the relationship between the mass of the plant material you are working with and your choice of soil. We often concern ourselves with "over-potting" (using a container that is too large), but "over-potting" is a term that arises from a lack of a basic understanding about the relationship we will look at, which logically determines appropriate container size. It's often parroted that you should only move up one container size when "potting-up". The reasoning is, that when potting up to a container more than one size larger, the soil will remain wet too long and cause root rot issues, but it is the size/mass of the plant material you are working with, and the physical properties of the soil you choose that determines both the upper & lower limits of appropriate container size - not a formulaic upward progression of container sizes. In many cases, after root pruning a plant, it may even be appropriate to step down a container size or two, but as you will see, that also depends on the physical properties of the soil you choose. It's not uncommon for me, after a repot/root-pruning to pot in containers as small as 1/5 the size as that which the plant had been growing in prior to the work. Plants grown in ‘slow’ (slow-draining/water-retentive) soils need to be grown in containers with smaller soil volumes so that the plant can use water quickly, allowing air to return to the soil before root issues beyond impaired root function/metabolism become a limiting factor. We know that the anaerobic (airless) conditions that accompany soggy soils quickly kill fine roots and impair root function/metabolism. We also know smaller soil volumes and the root constriction that accompany them cause plants to both extend branches and gain o/a mass much more slowly - a bane if rapid growth is the goal - a boon if growth restriction and a compact plant are what you have your sights set on. Conversely, rampant growth can be had by growing in very large containers and in very fast soils where frequent watering and fertilizing is required - so it's not that plants rebel at being potted into very large containers per se, but rather, they rebel at being potted into very large containers with a soil that is too slow and water-retentive. This is a key point. We know that there is an inverse relationship between soil particle size and the height of the perched water table (PWT) in containers. As particle size increases, the height of the PWT decreases, until at about a particle size of just under 1/8 inch, soils will no longer hold perched water. If there is no perched water, the soil is ALWAYS well aerated, even when the soil is at container capacity (fully saturated). So, if you aim for a soil (like the gritty mix) composed primarily of particles larger than 1/16", there is no upper limit to container size, other than what you can practically manage. The lower size limit will be determined by the soil volume's ability to allow room for roots to ’run’ and to furnish water enough to sustain the plant between irrigations. Bearing heavily on this ability is the ratio of fine roots to coarse roots. It takes a minimum amount of fine rootage to support the canopy under high water demand. If the container is full of large roots, there may not be room for a sufficient volume of the fine roots that do all the water/nutrient delivery work and the coarse roots, too. You can grow a very large plant in a very small container if the roots have been well managed and the lion's share of the rootage is fine. You can also grow very small plants, even seedlings, in very large containers if the soil is fast (free-draining and well-aerated) enough that the soil holds no, or very little perched water. I have just offered clear illustration why the oft repeated advice to ‘resist potting up more than one pot size at a time’, only applies when using heavy, water-retentive soils. Those using well-aerated soils are not bound by the same restrictions. As the ht and volume of the perched water table are reduced, the potential for negative effects associated with over-potting are diminished in a direct relationship with the reduction - up to the point at which the soil holds no (or an insignificant amount) of perched water and over-potting pretty much becomes a non-issue. Al

The best way to water is by applying water evenly over the soil surface until the soil is completely saturated and water is draining from the drain hole. Stop watering. Return in 10-15 minutes and water again until at least 15-20% of the total volume of water applied exits the drain hole. Alternately, water slowly over the entire surface until at least 15-20% of the total volume of water applied exits the drain hole. This practice prevents an unhealthy accumulation of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil solution. Watering only until you first observe water exiting the drain, then stopping, ensures an accumulation of dissolved solids. Also, most hobby growers are using a soil that is overly water-retentive. In deeper pots, there can be several (up to 6 or more) inches of soil that is 100% saturated at the bottom of the pot when the top 2-3 inches of soil feels completely dry. Use a 'tell' to 'tell' you when it's time to water. When the tell comes out nearly dry, it's time to water. 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

I second what Pam said. Vermiculite breaks down very quickly (physically - not by way of composting organisms), and perlite actually decreases o/a aeration before it starts to increase aeration when it becomes the primary soil ingredient by an overwhelming fraction. Perlite has a rough surface, but is not internally porous - it can't hold or exchange water or air from inside the particles, unlike particles like Turface, calcined DE, or pumice. If you start with exactly a cup or liter of soil, and add a particle of perlite, the volume of soil displaced is equal to the volume of the perlite particle. This is essentially like adding a golf ball to a pot of soil. The volume of the pot stays the same, but there is no aeration in the space occupied by the golf ball; therefore, the o/a % of aeration decreases, even while aeration in the soil surrounding the golf ball remains constant. The crux of the issue is, it's particle size that primarily determines what water retention will be. The smaller the particles in the medium, the more water it will hold, and the less air it can hold. When you start adding larger particles to a medium based on fine material (peat, compost, composted forest products, sand, topsoil, .....), o/a aeration actually and decreases until a threshold mixture of the contrasting particle sizes is reached. When the percentage/volume of coarse material reaches a fraction large enough that there is no longer a sufficient volume of fine material to fill all the valuable air spaces between the coarse particles, aeration begins to increase notably. Until that point, perlite serves more as ballast than anything else, and is much more valuable when it occurs in the medium in the space between the pot bottom and the upper limits of the perched water column. Understanding what a perched water column or 'table' is, why it occurs, how it affects root health - and by extension, the o/a health of the organism, and how to deal with it, is probably the most important part of becoming proficient at growing plants in pots. Ask if you have interest and I'll link you to an explanation here at Houzz/GW that's been active since 2005. You might also find this overview to be of interest. Al