healing wounds on ficus in general

my first beginner workshop tree was a tiger bark ficus, but i believe my question encompasses ficus in general...

from what i have gleaned, ficus have a hard time covering over wounds, such as branch removals flush with the trunk...

the wounds from earlier branch removal on mine are a couplafew years old and show no signs of covering over... but i have recently been learning about wound healing on deciduous material and have begun applying that technique to my ficus in the hopes that they will eventually close up. (i now believe that it may be best to leave a stump and whittle that down over the course of a couple years)

at any rate, i am curious how others have dealt with wounds in general on ficus.

I created this shari in 2002 or 3.



Here it is a month ago.



In 2010 I had to re-carve the shari to open it up; it is closing already.

If you significantly irritate (easy for you, Kevin? <--joke!) the inside of the callus ring it will close more quickly.

JimLewis wrote:If you significantly irritate (easy for you, Kevin?  <--joke!) the inside of the callus ring it will close more quickly.  

the truth only hurts if we can't laugh at ourselves !

ok - i will just keep picking away... at the tree that is

any thoughts on general intervals... ?
re-do it once or twice a year ?
or more often with something like a ficus ?

All I can say is do it when you think it needs it. I suspect figs grow at a different rate up there where the Inuit live.

Hmm, I've always found ficus to heal over rather easily. Not sure the difference. I use a cut paste right away so the cut edge doesn't dry and pull away. Maybe w/o that it would be slowed significantly?