Digging up ficus and replanting every spring?

[dustbust]

I just built a monster raised garden bed for growing out bonsai. I have a plan to plant my ficus trees every spring and dig up in the fall, pot, and grow inside over the winter. I have a grow area in my basement. I live in ND so I get about 4 months outside time for my ficus.

Anybody have experience with this?

 

[Poink88]

Better to keep it in pot full time instead.

 

[BrianBay9]

I'd suggest growing it in a pond basket, strainer, or something similar. Sink the whole pot in the ground in the spring, and root prune back to the pot when you take it in.

 

[MrFancyPlants]

I think you could do it without the pond basket, although I used a flat this year, I have considered doing it both ways. For my tropicals that I really wanted to gain some energy I planted them all in a flat and let the roots escape which has sped up development dramatically. In the past I have use pond baskets for the summer and then repotted into a much smaller pot for the winter so that I can cram them all in under my LEDs and t5s. Your raied bed should do just fine, although a nice granular soil would help when it came to repotting time in the fall. The only tricky part is timing, which depends on what sort of setup you have inside. If you are confident that your lighting and humidity indoors will promote rapid growth for recovery from the repotting you can wait all the way until right before the night time temps drop into the 40's. If your trees slow down more in the winter inside then you might want to repot in the fall a bit early so that the real sunlight can help the plants acclimate to the new pots before they are brought in.

 

[dustbust]

Looks like there are a few methods for success. I like the pond basket idea, let the roots escape then trim in the fall.

I have 4 ficus, 2 about the same. Maybe ill just experiment. 1 planted on a tile and repotted every year. 1 put in a buried pond basket, pulled, and trimmed.

 

[linlaoboo]

I did that for a dozen of my ficuses for 2 seasons and they fattened up nicely. I planted directly r
Which means when itss time for potting in the tall lots of roots get chopped off. Especially long tap roots. Watch out for knats before bringing indoors. I had some infestation.

 

[Bill S]

Someone I know grows a lot of stock using rootmaker grow bags, with great success. Not for pulling trops every year, but it could fit the bill for this.

I have seen another garden that has hardy banana's, in the ground and dozens of probably 25 gal pots of various large tropical plants around his yard, zone 5b. Wonder if the feds ever looked at his light bill?