Fukien Tea Tree trim help?

[Bluebird23]

I just got this (new to me) Fukien tea tree. It has a lot of dead growth twigs and looks pretty messy. Should I trim all of those bits off? (Photo included is focused mostly on the dead bits. There is more growth out of the picture)

 

[Sean Walker]

Huh......So that’s what they look like before they get gussied up for mass sale in every store
I’m interested in how it looks with the feedback you get!
thanks for posting

 

[Carol 83]

Pretty sure that's a ficus.

 

[Bluebird23]

Pretty sure that's a ficus.

It arrived at the greenhouse with no tag so they were doing a best guess based on what they ordered! I still wonder about trimming either way!

 

[bluesky]

Me too. Ficus retusa. If so, you're gonna enjoy it for a lot more years than if it were a Fukien' tea.

 

[Bluebird23]

Me too. Ficus retusa. If so, you're gonna enjoy it for a lot more years than if it were a Fukien' tea.

Will it survive if I give it a large trim? My old ficus never got that wild but it definitely does look similar. I'll have to let the greenhouse know they misidentified it

 

[bluesky]

Re. Trimming. Yes you can safely prune off all the dead twigs. Will survive no prob.
You might want to repot it to a bigger pot with some free-draining soil soon. And in the same move, move those new shoots to new pots. Before you do that, watch these YouTube videos for a couple of days straight:

Ficus cutting of a cutting

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

Ficus Sisters

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

 

[Forsoothe!]

It's impossible to see where branches are in this photo, but here's a beginning of a discussion of how to clean this out and still have something left...

 

[Kdavis1109]

Pretty sure that's a ficus.

Definitely a ficus. Enjoy!