ficus first styling

[matty-j]

hey everyone
i hope ur all having a very nice fathers day!!
this morning i wired a ficus of mine for the first time
i havent done much wiring or styling before so if i have done something wrong
please let me know
if you have any thoughts let me know
i found this tree abandoned under a tree at work so i picked it up
it has put on a fair bit of growth i think in the last year
i have only been watering it to be honest
and some slow release osmocote once
ive been very hesitant on using ferts because i don't want to kill it haha
can i use thrive on ficus? or dl?

anyway here are some photos

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[bonzaidog]

Hi Matty...Nice start mate ! wouldn't be a bad idea to get it into a flatter,wider container though, start concentrating on the nebari before it becomes a tangled ball in that pot.
Just tease the roots out into a nice spread radial pattern and cut off any heavy tap roots growing straight down from the middle.Then you can start a feeding regime as it starts to show
some new growth.Keep a close eye on the wires as they will cut into the branches pretty quickly after that. Cheers ....Dog.

[shibui]

Matty Figs just LOOOOOVE fertiliser - any sort. Some of our locals put DL on about 3cm thick all over the soil surface and they grow like mad. Thrive will work well too. Use it at recommended strength about every week or 2.
Here is a thread about heavy feeding to develop figs quicklyviewtopic.php?f=12&t=3173&hilit=fast+growth+method

[Chad]

Mate I just load up my figs with dynamic lifter and osmocote. They love it.

[matty-j]

bonzaidog and chad thanks for the info much appreciated
i was thinking of re potting this once it warms up a little more into a large flat trey about 50mm deep does this sound ok

shibui that link is awesome it makes you think that its hard to over fertilise a ficus

[Chad]

I would just pot it into a 12" pot. Cut the pots height down by half and just feed it up. Let it grow. All depends on the size that you want it. I put another in a small pot and fed to. Pics of it in thread my little fig

[matty-j]

Hey Everyone

so i have been sitting and staring at this fig for a while now
and the taper..... well the lack of it
has been bothering me and i don't really want to chop it if
i dont have to but i was thinking could i try and get it to
develop arial roots to try and flair out the bottom half of the trunk?
are there any other ways of developing taper on a tree like this?

thanks in advance

[siddhar]

are there any other ways of developing taper on a tree like this?

20 years should do it. Otherwise chop it, and you'll throw the tree into some vigorous budding of branches everywhere. In one growing season you'll have by far, more options than you'll know what to do with.

[kcpoole]

the only way to get taper on this without chopping, is to get some low branches to shoot, and then let them grow unhindered for as long as you can. Then Remove the sacrifices once happy with the size.
If you can get it in a large pot or the ground for a few years, Fertilise madly with D.L. and see what you get

Ken

[matlea]

All good advice above... Agree with a larger but shallow pot, and spread the roots on repotting. Otherwise it's in the ground with a tile or the like underneath to limit / stop roots growing down.

[Bougy Fan]

I don't think the taper is too bad - there is some there. You could just wire up one branch as a new leader and it'd not a radical chop then. These hills figs can be a bit reluctant to bud back low on the trunk so you may have trouble getting a sacrifice in the correct position. I would repot it and sort the roots out soon - and put it into a 300mm orchid pot in a very free draining mix. Then cover it in DL and keep up the water.

[matty-j]

thanks for all the advice guys much appreciated

i dont think ill be chopping this one
ill do what i should have done a while ago and sort the roots out
i should have added a photo of the base of the tree

so the highest thick root has been removed a long time ago
but the 2 lower thick roots are still there and i have a feeling
that all the roots of the tree come off these 2 points
there is one thick one running at the back pointing towards the left hand side
i'am assuming thats these will all have to be removed?

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[matlea]

I would shorten the thick roots a bit ... Just enough at this stage to let the smaller ones grow. Could then reduce further on the next pot up

[matty-j]

thanks for all the comments everyone very much appreciated

so i re potted it today and removed the 2 higher up fat roots
which improved the taper

i'm not to sure about how to improve the roots now tho
because the roots swell out to the new soil level
then reverse taper begins and then the roots start
so i dont know where to go from here in making the root system better?
i cant see how i could get a nice radial nebari in this situation?

any thoughts or ideas on what i should do would be fantastic

cheers
matt

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[shibui]

Matty,
3 possibilities:
1. I can't see reverse taper so maybe ignore it and enjoy the tree as it is.
2. Wound the tree at the current root level and build soil level up to cover this to stimulate more roots at that level to a get better radial root system. Combined with a stronger root pruning of down growing roots this will cause the lower trunk to expand and produce better taper down low.
3. Ground layer at the height of your perceived widest point to produce a new radial rootsystem at the widest point of the trunk.