Ficus microcarpa Progression

Hey everyone,



Just realized that I've never really shared the progression of this tree here. It's come a long way, and it's turning into quite the nice little tree.

I first bought this Ficus in January of 2013. I bought it because there was a small bud down low that I saw myself chopping the tree back to:



Shortly after bringing it home, I chopped it back:


It began back budding the next month:



For the next several months I let it grow wild:


Fast forward to November 2014, after branch selection and more growth, here's the tree. It's coming along very well.

Ryan wrote:Hey everyone,



Just realized that I've never really shared the progression of this tree here. It's come a long way, and it's turning into quite the nice little tree.

I first bought this Ficus in January of 2013. I bought it because there was a small bud down low that I saw myself chopping the tree back to:



Shortly after bringing it home, I chopped it back:


It began back budding the next month:



For the next several months I let it grow wild:


Fast forward to November 2014, after branch selection and more growth, here's the tree. It's coming along very well.

its a beautiful transformation .. .good luck and keep posting further pics .

If I am reading your post right, you cut it down to the trunk in winter? What are the temps there in winter, I presume some freezing? I would have thought this would be a summer effort, when it is growing most vigorously. In what conditions did you keep it during the subsequent weeks as it started to to put out new growth?

Precarious wrote:If I am reading your post right, you cut it down to the trunk in winter?  What are the temps there in winter, I presume some freezing?  I would have thought this would be a summer effort, when it is growing most vigorously.  In what conditions did you keep it during the subsequent weeks as it started to to put out new growth?

Yup, I cut it back in winter. I don't look at things like time of year when it comes to working on tropicals. If they're actively pushing out a fair amount of new growth, I figure it's safe to work on them because I know the roots are moving. I kept this tree with my others under T5 lighting.

I've gotten excellent growth under T-5 lights. Nicely done. In general for tropicals, if your light garden is bright enough and warm enough you can keep ficus in active growth all year round. Personally my light garden is too cool to keep my ficus growing all winter. My ficus are mostly dormant, but my bouganvillea does grow all winter. So it is species specific as to how warm a light garden needs to be to get a tropical tree to grow like it was in the tropics. Well done.

Another note on Ficus in winter. If you chill a ficus by leaving it outside too late into the autumn, you send it into dormancy. Then you need a warm spell of several weeks to a month or so to "wake it up". If you bring your ficus indoors before night temperatures drop into the 50's F. you can keep it growing without a break in activity. Most Ficus really only grow in tropical warmth. (the edible Fig, is the most cold tolerant of the genus, its minimum to keep it growing is cooler, but for the rest somewhere around 60 F and above is good for continuous growth).

Great job! I just got a massive ficus for free so I'm pretty excited to start working on it