Ficus microcarpa progression over seven years

[erich_raudebaugh]

In this awful photo, you can see the ficus I bought in 2013 in the blue pot, which is about 4" wide. When I bought in from Ace Hardware, it had about 4 leaves on it, but they were tiny and the few other trees in the store were ugly ginsengs.

 

[erich_raudebaugh]

After only two years of growth, and of course repotting into a larger pot with good soil. September 2015

 

[erich_raudebaugh]

I gave it a basic styling and used a sacrifice branch to anchor the new leader. There's some decent nebari under the soil.

 

[erich_raudebaugh]

No photos from 2016, but in June 2017 I defoliated and styled it again. The new leader had a sacrifice branch (it had grown at the area of the previous stub you can see from 2015) removed at this time, it has thickened nicely.

 

[erich_raudebaugh]

In July 2018, it went into a bigger pot.

 

[erich_raudebaugh]

In June 2019, I removed the first branch on the right, I didn't like the bar branch look it had, plus the one on the right was far less ramified.

 

[erich_raudebaugh]

January 2020, before taking the wiring off which had began to cut in. Starting this winter, I gave all my ficus trees strong artificial light, plus sphagnum moss around the trunk base covered by plastic. The silvery wire keeps the moss in place when I take the plastic off to water it.

On this tree, it produced aerial roots, but the others not so much. At any rate, they didn't dry out badly from the forced air heating system like they usually do so I'd say it worked great.

 

[erich_raudebaugh]

July 2020 after repotting into the same pot and doing some light styling. You can see the aerial roots now, I left some of the sphagnum on until they harden off.

 

[erich_raudebaugh]

Front and back today. The leader will be cut off in a year or so, the tree defoliated, restyled, and the cycle continues. Right now I'm trying to increase the density of the lower branches.

Ficus are a bit of a pain because as the branches don't set easily, even when you let the wire cut in. I've found that exaggerating the bends a bit seems to help.

 

[Forsoothe!]

View attachment 327486View attachment 327487

In June 2019, I removed the first branch on the right, I didn't like the bar branch look it had, plus the one on the right was far less ramified.

Ahhhhhhrrrrrrrrrggggg Phhhhhhhhhhhhhhttttttttttt

 

[erich_raudebaugh]

Ahhhhhhrrrrrrrrrggggg Phhhhhhhhhhhhhhttttttttttt

I agonized over it for a year before chopping it off. I posted a couple pics from today, hopefully I made the right choice!

 

[SniffingKrylon]

Good work, Really nice tree. I think it was the right move removing that branch.

 

[erich_raudebaugh]

Good work, Really nice tree. I think it was the right move removing that branch.

Thanks! The tree has a ways to go, I'll keep updating the thread.

 

[Carol 83]

Really nice progression.

 

[erich_raudebaugh]

Really nice progression.

Thanks Carol!

 

[leatherback]

Nice!
What an amazing growth you get. Good summers there?

 

[erich_raudebaugh]

Nice!
What an amazing growth you get. Good summers there?

Yes, pretty good. The last couple years have been colder and wetter than normal, but before that I lived on a houseboat so the humidity stayed high. In the winter I give all my ficus lots of light, I have two 1000W LED banks, they don't generate much heat because they are fan cooled so I can put them very close to the leaves.