In message , David WE Roberts
writes
Many years back, bought a couple of Ficus from Tesco - like minature
trees with variegated leaves.
Small pots, plants about a foot high at the moment, think they started
out a bit smaller.
Cycles of care and neglect have seen them drop leaves and regrow them
many times.
Ove the years some branches (twigs) have stopped producing leaves so
the whole thing looked straggly.
The overall size has remained much the same.

I have recently done two things:

(1) Cut off all the unproductive straggly twigs - there are some signs
of new growth and the existing growth seems to be O.K.

(2) Finally got round to re-potting. Potted on into significanlty
larger pots.

Now prior to and during repotting, these Ficus, which have two vertical
stems each, turned out to be short lengths of very thick branch laid
horizontal with a couple of shoots forming the two new stems/strunks.
This implies that the parent was a tree of significant size.
Which in turn makes me think of the different sizes of similar
plants/trees I have seen.

I had one (long dead) which was in a big pot in the sun lounge and grew
to about 4 foot high.

I have seen similar looking trees in shopping centres which were much
larger - 20 feet or more.

Fide Wikipedia, Ficus elastica grows to up to 200 feet tall. Even Ficus
benjamina can reach a 100 feet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficus_elastica
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficus_benjamina

Which brings me to wonder if all are the same plant/tree - I had
assumed that I had a minature version but perhaps what I have is a
couple of severely pot bound trees.

Anyone else taken a small version and grown it on to be huge?

Cheers

Dave R


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Stewart Robert Hinsley