A friend of mine shared that August 11 (an oddly specific date) is the “perfect time to repot ficus.” I’m not sure exactly where he got that info, but coupled with the familiar “hottest day of the year” advice, I will conclude that it is not too late to repot two small ficus I have been meaning to get to.

Both trees are very early in their development. The first is this Ficus microcarpa which I have dubbed “Captain Jack.”

Jack has been allowed to grow out a fair bit, but I’d like to start working on developing a branch structure. I already lost an opportunity to develop some branching by letting it grow out too long. You may be able to see, in the image above, that some of the long extensions began branching, but all of those are too far away from the trunk to be useful.

To begin developing the primary branches, each branch coming off the trunk was cut back to just two leaves. Only a couple had some close-in branching that could be kept. In those cases, each growing tip was reduced to two leaves with hopes the bud at the base of each leaf will extend into a new branch as it grows out.

I cut each remaining leaf, leaving the petiole and just a small triangle of the leaf blade. These will serve as dramatically reduced, but still functional foliar surface area to sustain the tree until new leaves push out.

The second tree is a small Ficus salicaria that has also grown out significantly.

The large branch reaching to the right, in the photo above, was removed, and a similar approach to the first tree was applied to what remained.

Perhaps contrary to the evidence above, I have declared on multiple occasions that “I am trying to quit tropicals.” I have only a small collection of ficus, but each has a special value to me because of where it came from or how long I have had it. When I say “I am trying to quit,” I really mean I am just not adding more ficus to my collection. Nevertheless, I couldn’t bring myself to throw away the thickest branch I removed.

Salicaria root so easily, and they really are a great variety to work with. I will just plan to give this cutting away to someone who can develop it. Who wants it?