Yes, use a wick. You should be able to find perlite in any big box store. The coarser the better. Ideally, the particles would be larger than 1/8" and smaller than 1/4. You can also screen what you find through a kitchen strainer with mesh about the size of insect screening. Use the coarse fraction and mix it 50/50 with your current soil. If you employ a wick, a hole through the bottom of the pot at the edge is best. After watering, tilt the pot at a 45* angle with the wick/drain hole down. That will help you drain a LOT of excess water. If your planting is small enough, you could employ the strategy of moving the pot downward, then sharply upward to drain even more excess water from the soil - another tip touched on in the link I provided above. See B and E below. Al

Thanks, Lee. It's always nice to find out that someone finds value in the things we write. One would assume a nursery wouldn't over water their plants. In most cases, plants in nuresries WON'T be over-watered for a couple of reasons. One of those is that they are good at noticing signs that illustrate a group of plants need fopr water, or for just establishing an appropriate schedule on which to water. The second reason has to do with the fact that the plants often rest on the ground. When the pot is in direct contact with the ground, or if roots grow from the pot into the ground or through a ground cover cloth under the pots, the earth acts as a giant wick to pull excess water from the soil. If you use a soil that is capable of supporting 3-4" of perched water and you set it directly on dry ground, the perched water will disappear within minutes due to the wicking action of the earth. .... to clarify. Water when the skewer/dowel comes out free of dirt/dry looking? Yes, that's right. If you were checking daily or twice daily to get a 'feel' for how often to water, the ideal time to water would be the first time the tell comes out dry. IOW, you want to wait until just before the plant might experience drought stress before you water. With some species of ficus (like benjamina), you can clearly see or feel when the youngest leaves are just starting to lose turgidity. If you wait until then and pay attention to the interval since last watering, you can often establish an appropriate rhythm that should keep you out of trouble re over-watering. Do you have to use a new dowel every time? If you're actually using a dowel, you can cut a 4' piece in half & sharpen all 4 ends. If you're using a skewer, they're cheap, so why not use a fresh one after each moist pot you discover. Or, if you wipe the end off with a rag and wave it in the air between tests, it usually dries down enough that you can test a lot of plants with just the 4 ends from the single rod you cut in half. How much water do I flush it with? I usually suggest at least 10x the volume of the pot the plant is in; and if you err, it's better to err on the generous side and use more than 10x. How often do you do it? I use a soil that I can flush at will, and I DO flush every time I water. If you're limited to supplying small amounts of water to prevent soils from staying soggy for long periods, a thorough flush every 4-6 weeks is good. What do I use as the wick? Anything cotton? Cotton rots quickly. I prefer strands of rayon. You can buy a rayon mop head and pull it apart, or buy a man made rayon chamois and cut it in strips. Too, the nylon string ties used to tie onion or citrus bags closed very often work very well for drainage wicks (but not watering wicks). I have some of those that are 12-15 years old & still working great. Not all are created equal though, so discard those that don't work well. And do you tape it on the side of the planter out of the effluent. I meant to talk to you about the effluent. Your pot should be raised so it's above the effluent that collects in the saucer, or via other means, the effluent should have no pathway back into the soil. Reason: It doesn't make sense to flush salts from the soil only to leave a pathway right back to where they came from because the pot is sitting in the effluent. Here's how I do wicks: That covers how I do it before the planting is established. If the pot supports an established planting, I simply fold the wick over the end of a straight slot screwdriver and push it into the soil far enough that the short end is all the way into the soil. That holds it pretty securely initially and as roots grow around and into the wick, even more so. Is foliage pro 9-3-6 still your go to fertilizer? Yes. I might add a little extra K for some plants (tomato and hibiscus), but I basically use it for everything. I completely avoid any high-P fertilizers in containers. I consider a fertilizer to be high in P if the middle number (P) is equal to or larger than the first number (N). ..... it seems I will loose a bunch of leaves off the bottom. Is it ever possible to get that growth back? Yes. Once a leaf is shed, no new leaf will form in its place, but above the scar where a shed leaf was attached, there are dormant buds that can be stimulated to grow. The methods of activating these latent buds could easily fill a chapter in a book, so I won't elaborate. Back-budding will naturally occur if you can get the plant outdoors in full sun and plenty of air movement, fertilize it in what's called the luxury range, and make sure the root system is healthy and has plenty of room to run. You can artificially stimulate back-budding low on the trunk by notching or pruning the plant back hard. The hard pruning is especially effective when working with healthy plants at the peak of their food-making/photosynthesizing ability, which, where you live would be in June. Father's Day or the summer solstice are the easiest markers to remember. You mentioned the kids and learning. When I was a youngster, I went to a 1-room little red brick schoolhouse that had K-8 in the one room. Obviously, it was hard for the teacher to spend as much time with each student as they needed, so most of the time I read World Book Encyclopedia and anything I could get my hands on about animals or science. I only wish that the world of plant science would have got its hooks into me at a very young age. I hope your kids find something they love to do, no matter what it is, and have the opportunity to follow that calling. Al

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

Hi Josie, people commonly have FLF issues originating from an inappropriate watering regimen and from an overly water retentive soil. If you search on the forums there are some great threads where Tapla (Al) shares his knowledge on soils and what makes for an appropriate mix for houseplants. Since it’s fall, it’s not a good time to repot plants. But it is a perfect time to learn all about the needs of your plant so you can repot it in spring. How do you water? How do you decide it’s time to water? To tell it’s time to water, take a sharpened wooden dowel (or chopstick) and insert it deep (all the way to the bottom) of the soil. If it comes out moist and with dark soil, don’t water yet. If it comes out clean and dry, it’s time to water! Check every couple of days. When it’s time to water, good watering practice is to water until water flows freely out of the drainage holes in the bottom of the container. Also, FLFs love lots of light. It should be right up in front of your brightest South facing window, unobstructed by blinds or curtains.