Billy M. Rhodes wrote:

I think F. religiosa aka Bo Tree has rather large leaves also. They
are not cold hardy. Most Ficus respond well to pruning and (with the exception
of F. ben. and its cultivars) leaf removal.

I've heard this forever about F. ben and I don't know why it's the
conventional wisdom. I have 8 of them and I defoliate each of them
completely every other year. I remove every single leaf, and prune and
wire branches in June.

They live indoors from late October through mid-late May and then
outside in a protected area of my yard here in the Shenandoah Valley of
Virginia. We're at the edge of a couple zones, so I'm either 6 or 7
depending on which side of the hill you live on and if Murphy's Laws are
in effect that year.

I've had most of these trees since the 80's and they've survived drastic
pruning, complete defoliating and procedures like air layering and
grafting.

One hard-travelled one that I air layered still has both pieces potted
and growing. It was a standard about 4 feet tall and maybe 1" in
diameter at the soil line, with trifurcated top. Gift from a friend to
put in one of my restaurants. I wanted to make the top into a three-tree
planting and air layered it to do that. Took about 3 1/2 months to make
enough roots to divide it. The bottom had no branches when I started the
process, but a single one sprouted during the time it was being layered.
I had a tall stick with one branch and decided to make it into a cascade
because why not...?

I bent it over with some difficulty. It formed an awkward bend, so I
notched it, put in some screw-eyes and ran a steel wire with a
turnbuckle in it from one to the other and pulled it down. I gradually
tightened the turnbuckle to pull it down further and further and it was
working fine. The notch healed over the next couple years. I potted it
in an old straight-sided ceramic crock (took it from one of my
restaurants) where it still lives. It grew lots of new branches and I
was shaping them to suit my aesthetic. But then, disaster. It was on a
wall outside my then-residence in 1999 and a tree branch from a big
maple fell on it and broke it about 1/3 of the way along it's length.
The good lines were destroyed and the plant was looking like it was
dying. Leaves dropped. Branches died. It has recovered, but I stopped
trying to shape it while it was growing healthier. I've let it grow on
since then with only minimal pruning. I'll start doing something with it
again when I put it back outside this year.

The layered three-tree top suffered its own problems back in 2001 when
we got a surprise frost on October 1 and I barely got my tropicals into
the house. Some of the F. bens had their leaves lightly frozen. Lots of
branch dieback on the three-tree, including the middle of the three
branches. Now it's a two-tree with strange tops. Many of the small
branches didn't make it, so I've been pruning to get more branching.
Still looks thinner than I want. Couple more years.

But, back to subject. Defoliating F. ben can be done to good purpose. In
my case, the leaves come back smaller and there's also a lot of new
branching. It creates an opportunity to cut back long internodes and
shape the trees with nothing obstructing the views.

I've got mostly individual trees, but I have a group (F.ben.variegata)
and some of the small-leaf cultivars. They're all about the same when it
comes to the handling. Because they're indoor-outdoor plants that are
subject to the rigors of heating and air conditioning, I have them in a
soil mix that retains moisture more than the trees I have outdoors
exclusively. And the room they're in has a humidifier set to 45%. It
never reaches it, but it tries most gamely.

The white sap (latex) can be a nuisance and irritating to some.

I raises very pretty red welts on my skin that persist for a week or
more. I use rubber gloves when I'm working with my F. bens.

Pastorio

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