Last Cut of the Season

After my last post about my Clip and Grow Ficus I thought I was done for the season. After six months of solid growth and minimal pruning it was time to let the new branches fatten up. But things don't always work out quite as planned.

One of my Reddit readers suggested that I wire some movement into the new branches while they were still young and flexible. As I'm gradually overcoming my aversion to wiring my trees, I decided to follow his advice.

After wiring it, I took the tree to a club meeting for feedback. One of the senior members suggested that I remove the lower branches that have been bothering me for so long. Another wanted to know what I was planning to do with the top, which was looking rather two dimensional. I decided it was time to deal with both issues.

Since that meeting I've removed those branches and trimmed the sharp bends at the two chop sites so that the movement in the trunk now looks a lot more natural. And by twisting the newly wired leader I was able to create a back branch, giving the tree a much more three dimensional appearance.

This is how it looks today:

June 2017

And now it really is time for it to have a rest.

The next move will be to repot it in spring. It's time to remove the root cutting as well as the roots growing around the rim of the pot:

Root cutting (right) and messy roots