As a bonsai judge, I know a little about what to do to bring out the potential in the tree's shape. Technically, the bifurcations (forks) appear too high on the trunk for the tree to be an ideal multi-trunk specimen, which means you would need to reduce the tree to a single trunkline to get the best from the tree. No big deal if that's not something you want to do because you're not looking for a prize, just a more presentable tree. You might have made an error if you pruned out the center of the tree, which it looks like you did in the picture. The stem closest to the center, determined by an imaginary vertical line upward from where the trunk enters the soil, would be the logical leader. At this point, you should decide if you want it to be a single trunk (you'd need to remove 3 trunks) or a multi-trunked plant. As an option, you could fairly easily air layer off the top of the tree just below where the trunks all split. If you're going to leave it all tied up until the trunks are set in place, you need to reduce the ht of all the trunks to different hts. Generally, trees look better with 1, 2, 3, 5, or 7 trunks. 4 is not usually used, so I would remove 1 trunk, then shorten the other 3 so the thickest trunk is tallest, the thinnest trunk is 1/2 the ht of the tallest, and the trunk with medium thickness is 2/3 the ht of the tallest. What do you think? Al

A - Help forthcoming if you do your part by providing us a picture. Al

The best place is to use the House Plants forum on this site as yours is a house plant. This forum is for edible figs. They are very good folks over there and I am sure they can help. Good luck.

Hi, Jocelyn. I'm happy to see you came back to share the progress and offer the kind words. Your tree has changed quite a bit from the first images you posted - strong work! "...... now branches A and B are growing a lot faster than the others bc they are closer to the sunlight which is a skylight. Branch D is moderate grower, E and F are toward the wall and not growing much - I think A and B may be shading them. Branch C has no leaves anymore. It used to have a couple but they fell off. That branch is totally shaded. My question is how many branches should I prune? All of them or only A and B, the big growers? Do I prune all the way down to two leaves again? Also, when I prune, is there a direction or exact placement of the cut I should do to encourage branching in one direction vs another? Just trying to figure out how to prevent shading of other branches...but maybe that’s due to the sunlight direction? And would you just cut off Branch C since there are no leaves, and if so, where do I make the cut? I'll try to go through and answer in the order your questions were asked, though I'm sure I'll get overzealous about one question and in expanding on it I'll likely answer other of your questions. I guess that's why the phrase "see above" was coined. As far as how many branches should be pruned, I think all that are growing strongly need pruning to force energy to the weaker branches. The branches growing moderately should be at least pinched (tip pruned to stop extension and force hack-budding. I would prune everything back in bounds.To establish where the boundary is, imagine a giant soup bowl, upside down, and settled over the trunk. Anything sticking out beyond that outline should be cut back to the outline, more specifically, to the leaf that is closest TO the outline w/o extending beyond it. This should produce back-budding in at least the 2 leaves closest to the cut. If the distal leaf heads in the wrong direction, which would be the direction where it will receive less light, you can cut back to the next proximal leaf (1 leaf closer to the trunk). If it was my tree, I would have no problem doing the following: Prune back to the outline as described above, then tip-prune every branch you didn't need to prune to keep it in bounds. Then, remove every leaf on the tree except the last (most distal) leaf on each branch and move the tree outdoors as soon as temps allow. Give it a week in dappled or open shade, then move it where it receives sun for a half day for a week before moving into full sun. This strategy will force lots of back-budding - just be careful not to over-water because transpirational water loss (due to reduction of the canopy) will decrease significantly. If you aren't using Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 regularly, the plant will show its appreciation if you do. If we didn't discuss that previously, we can do that. Oh - keep after the pinching, too. You can see by now, I would guess, how much difference pinching can make. Al