Multiple new shoots after a heading cut is pretty normal. That's why most arborists will generally tell you not to do it. Of course the bonsai folks will disagree. Lol.

You'll want to limit the number at the top to two or three. You'll also want to make sure that the crotches that develop are not too tight as those will be weaker than a wide crotch.

Thanks! Yes It was always the plan to have the trees branch out so the top cut was essential ( they are 3 yrs old and weren’t making the move themselves;) but thanks I figured it couldn’t be a long term thing as there is not physical space there to allow them all to develop into strong branches so are ones emerging from immediately above the leaf of any benefit to keep over ones just adjacent to one (obv the first would be in more of a tight space but questioning if it benefits for a while from the functional leaf just under it ?)

Also... do i just pull vs cut the buds I want to terminate? Should i wait till 2 leaves emerge to see what’s looking healthiest?

@rebecca did you just prune the top recently or buy it like that? The top prune cut looks good so i don’t think it’s that. Did you just repot the one not producing leaves?or If you just purchased these trees my initial guess is the one not pushing out new leaves right now was likely recently repotted with root pruning done at the same time and so it’s putting its energy into making good strong roots temporarily- which can temporarily “stunt” new top growth but judging by the pic of that tree with all its leaves look very healthy I wouldnt presume that would last more then 4-6 wks Max from the time they repoted being that this is the biggest growth time. These trees will absolutely be pushing out 3 leaves at a time from each branch very quickly thru summer if receiving good light so give it a few weeks and I beg you see it take off as well. If this seems plausible just make sure you don’t fertilize it until it does decide to push 2+ leaves out on its own as that could weaken the tree/ root system it’s trying to develop.

Anyhow if the trees are not new nor recently repotted then my guess dosent match up and The trees health must come into question- as in not enough nutrients due to old soil and/or being root bound in its pot. Hope that helps/ if not maybe more history would help.

Hey Elissa -

Thanks! I did just buy it in May and haven’t touched it pruning wise. So all the pruning was done prior to my purchasing.

I did just (today) pot it up in Al’s recommended gritty mix, so I hope this helps. The roots were pretty congested although I didn’t trim any roots, some pulled away while I was removing the old soil. I guess I’ll keep it by my south facing window (in Vancouver BC) and keep my fingers crossed!!

Thanks and I’ll post progress!

Rebecca

@rebecca looked again at the close up of the prune mark and though it’s hard to tell from that angle the prune cut may be just a tad too low for
It to bud out new leaves at the very top BUT that does NOT interfere in anyway with how the tree produces new leaves from any spot lower on the stem... aka it still would be able to back bud anywhere lower on the tree it desired so it still has nothing to do with why its not producing leaves anywhere.

@rebecca okay yes that all makes sense then . Yes just give it a few weeks ( aka a few more weeks now even since you just switched soil mediums... it may even drop a few bottom leaves first but will be very happy in the long run from the switch) provide it as much light inside your house as you can or move it to a fully shaded but bright outdoor patio if you have that for it to bounce back the quickest. Just don’t fertilize till it pushes out 2-3 leaves.

@elissa

hey - so just thought I'd give you an update. I haven't watered since repotting in the gritty mix last Tuesday and this guy is not looking happy. Some of his lower leaves are yellowing and browning now, but in addition he's SUPER limp and droopy. Is this just shock?? Should I wait it out before panicking?

Also the mix he's in is still quite damp near the bottom, don't know why its retaining moisture, I thought the gritty mix was supposed to be a fast driving soil? Do you think the decorative pot its in is hindering air flow maybe??

I have it sitting next to a large south facing window, and I can't do better than what its got for light unless I potentially move it outside, but I've got a pretty shady (although southern facing) backyard. I live in the Vancouver, Canada region and we haven't had terrible weather but it's certainly not been great. Do you think I should put it outside??

Attached some pics :) Thanks so much for your help!!

Rebecca

Make sure the plant is not sitting in effluent at the bottom of the collection saucer. Raise the plant above it so there is no pathway by which the effluent can make its way back into the pot.

You said you didn't remove any soil - just potted it up into 'the gritty mix'. 2 or more dissimilar soils in the same pot is a problem. In my mind's eye, I can see water flowing over the top of the main/original root/soil mass and downward through the much more porous gritty mix, not sufficiently wetting the main/original root/soil mass.

The gritty mix IS a fast-drying soil, but consider the fact that none of the gritty mix is yet colonized by roots. It looks like the main pot is a nursery can with walls that are not gas permeable, so the only way water can exit the gritty mix fraction is via evaporation, which is painfully slow when the soil column is more than 4" deep and uncolonized by roots.

Did you keep the roots WET the entire time you worked on them? How did you make the gritty mix? Did you screen the ingredients? Can you pour some soil on a sheet of paper or a plastic snap-on lid so we get an image something like this? (See below)

Limit the number of buds from any single leaf axil to ONE. If several are growing from the same axil, keep the most vigorous and rub off the rest with your thumbnail or other suitable tool. Many are allergic (like me) to the latex sap.

If I wasn't much help, I apologize - I'm really tired and not concentrating well. I'll try to make time to read your thread more carefully tomo night to see if anything else jumps out at me.

Al

@tapla thanks, that helps I rubbed off 3 of those 6top buds before leaving town and will check back in when I get back as I do want your design advice before rubbing any more off!

@rebecca ... obvi @tapla is my the ultimate source & where I’ve learned 95% + from... and I def follow his train of thought that there has to be perched or trapped water “sitting inappropriately” somewhere by the look of those brown marks and you saying the leaves are limp. Just to clarify though do they feel limp which is usually overwatered( trapped water here guessing) vs limp as in just dropping down though which is definitely what also happens from a lack of water (all leaves will feel very crunchy though if that’s the case/ not soft which they do look kinda soggy soft in the pic ). Also note that leaves from bottom to top can definitely start to droop and soon after will usually fall off the tree if there was stress during the repot ( in your case maybe a ton of fine roots “ripped” if u removed soil with hands vs a hard water spray or maybe the roots dried out which I learned my first repot dosent take much.) Just all thoughts to help you problem solve. ( The brown spots alone can be from over or underwatering btw... but they do look soggy here)

But no this is not a standard gritty occurrence... aka there is no way your plant could be overwatered right now unless something is majorly not right with your set up: so First thing is ensuring you fully removed the old soil completely as @tapla mentioned & sifted out fine particles in your gritty ingredients ( if not he will have to advise on if your better off repoting again right now or not as I dont have experience there). Also check to make sure you don’t have water sitting bt the decorative planter and what I’m guessing is the black pot the plant is actually rooted in? Also make sure the holes in the pot are in a location that allows the water to drain out completely/ aka on bottom or corners but not just holes one inch up the side.

Conversely... Ways this may be due to underwatering: if you didn’t really soak the mix/ turface & bark especially prior to the repot then the one time watering was probably not even enough to truly deeply wet the soil much less give non established roots anything to drink. ( if that’s the case I’d just sit it under a water faucet and let it run over/ flood the pot contents for a solid 5-10 minutes... that still counts as just one good deep watering btw which is how FLF trees like being watered).

If it helps for some gritty mix standards... For my FLF’s in gritty mix inside my house which stays at about 60% humidity unless we’re blasting the heater a few weeks a year ( & all my FLF trees are rooted in Various plastic pots btw so not porous thru sides) I ‘can’ water my plants every other day no problem though I wouldn’t unless preparing to leave town for weekend/ I’d say every 3-4 days is usually best for mine... and Ive never ran into trouble with my trees getting so severely dry there is visible evidence ( leaf droop or drop or brown spot ) until the 7th+ day of no watering though the leaves are ultra crispy dry and not happy before then. So THIS is the beauty of gritty... it really is pretty hard to overwater with it and makes it so easy to care for what is know as a finicky plant.

In your tree... I’m suspecting it’s about to drop at least a few of those bottom leaves which if so is already unpreventable at this point. And know the brown spots are also irreversible now though it should stop once the problem is fixed ( & then you can kinda trim just the brown part off in a few weeks if you want/ if the leaf dosent fall off on its own)Also once leaves droop like that those specific leaves can’t ever perk back up again which is unfortunate I know. All I can say is something very similar happened with my first two repots( i think you can search my name and find my post from 2 yrs ago) which i know for me was due to too stressful of a repotting/ Root pruning/ letting roots dry out but i learned A LOT about these trees from it all in the meantime from that first ever real repot and now i have gone thru 6 other repots with root pruning involved with these 4 original FLF trees and afterwards the trees have hardly missed a step immediately after and always visibly flourish by 2 months later. So know that even if every leaf was to drop off ( your top few still look strong though at least ) the tree still has great potential if you can rectify the problem and help it get its strength back. Repoting into Gritty mix can definitely have a learning curve but i have definitely seen with my eyes that in the end it really does set you up to be exponentially more successful:)

Elissa and Al! Thank you so much for helping me get through this learning curve! I will try to address your thoughts and maybe together we can establish the right step forward!!

So exactly 1 week ago today I DID pot up with completely new soil. The tree is sitting in only gritty mix, and not the old soil :). I'll give you some detail on how the repot went:

For the gritty mix, I used #2 cherrystones grit, turface and Orchiata pine bark in precision, or "extra fine" which is about 3-6mm (1/8-1/4"). I mixed it all together according to Al's directions although I did NOT sift the mix, as I don't have a screen, couldn't find one, and people looked at me crazy when I asked where to find one!

Question about sifting: if I do sift my remaining mix, do I use the FINE mix that sifts through the screen, or do I use the bigger mix that does NOT sift through? Probably an important distinction I should know.

This is a picture of the mix my FLF is currently sitting in.

When I feel the top of the soil, it feels bone dry, and when I push a wooden dowel all the way to the bottom, ONLY the very tip comes out wet!

When I removed the old soil, I did so by 1) filling a bucket with water, and putting the entire root ball in the water and then reaching in with my hands to gently remove the soil, 2) by spraying it with the hose to loosen the soil and, 3) by trying to gently loosen and remove with a wooden chopstick. I tried very hard to keep the roots wet, and I don't think they dried at all, but seeing as it was my first real repot, I could have messed up?

Also, I did increase the pot size from a 10" to a 12" because that is what I had on hand. The pot is a black nursery pot, with what I think are adequate drain holes all around the bottom corner/sides and bottom. (pics)

I watered it thoroughly with the hose so it was saturated, then left it to drain for hours, before moving it back into its decorative pot. I am thinking the decorative pot might've been too tight, and not allowed for air to circulate around the drainage holes, which would mean the only available escape for water would be through evaporation out the top, which as Al says, is painfully slow.

When I removed the black pot from the white pot, there was a teeny tiny amount of water sitting at the bottom of the pot, but honestly, it just seems like condensation and not effluent water which is reentering the pot: There was enough water that I could smear around on the bottom of the pot - hope that makes sense...here is a pic of the inside of the pot:

Now, I decided to repot into gritty mix after diagnosing the plants original problems (dry brown spots) were from zealous overwatering in moisture retaining soil when I first brought it home. I decided (with Al's unwavering support) the gritty mix was the best solution, and repotted, I had hoped, successfully.

Now, in addition to brow spots, I have yellowing AND limp, droopy leaves. The leaves themselves do not feel limp, nor do they feel dry and crispy. Honestly, they feel healthy, crisp and firm. If I had to choose between the LEAVES themselves, I would say they feel dryer rather than wetter. (I hope I'm making sense), but the droop, is coming from the petiole of the leaf: here are pictures.

My instinct is to water this thing. I know the roots are not reaching all the way to the bottom of the plant, and I wonder if the roots are dry, but the dampness in the pot is only at the very bottom inch (max) of the pot. Of course, if I'm wrong, which I could very easily be, then obviously I don't want to perpetuate the problem! Ha!

While typing this, the tree dropped the worst of the brown leaves, and I think it's going to lose quite a few more before this is over.

Should I repot again? Did I do anything wrong? Should I move it outside to my very shady, but southern facing backyard? I live in a townhouse, so our backyards are small, with a LOT of tree cover, not to mention very TALL houses, so the sun does reach down in dappled spots, and its as bright as shaded daylight can be, but seeing as I am in Vancouver, its not hot by any stretch of the imagination.

Thoughts? Can I clarify anything further? Should I water it? It's been 7 days, no drink.

Thank you SO SO much -

Rebecca

@rebecca, to me it appears you did the research and did everything as well as any first timer could be expected to other than the screening part. Sounds like you did better than I with keeping roots totally wet. Since you paid for the already prescreened bark that’s not a concern and the “grit” usually is fairly close to size wanted other than some sandy crumbles at the bottom of the bag which isn’t “ terrible” and honestly most feel is almost not worth sifting if small amt BUT if you bought turface MVP by the commercial bag ( and not prescreened from say an amazon dealer) then that one can REALLY get you in trouble due to its clay based/ water retention properties and the fact that 50-70% of the bag is not of proper size... imo it’s rarely too big to be a problem/ not worth worrying about the large screen part (the bark is really the ingredient that requires screening away too large of ingredients since commonly sold in very large pieces. ) but turface in a bag contains a TON of “clay” dust that WILL cause problems with aeration/ drainage and acting as almost a plaster when wet. Btw I had the same problem when asking about screens everywhere too but finally realized a ton of lattice like “screens” i had around are the proper smaller screen size. Here is what I use the most and love... simply stole it from my kids sand castle building kit ;) lol works great for batch sizes I need ( just do many rounds of sifting) and you keep only what stays IN/ on top of this tray( i let the dust fall into my grass which loves it) . I hope you have watered by now but if not yes definitely water and water deeply! And I’d keep it out of the decorative pot for now to rule out. You should be able to water at LEAST every 4-5 days without problem, (may need watered more frequent than that). My guess for what it’s worth is that pot was fitting just perfect enough to maybe block good drainage from the holes... &/or you have turface dust settling at the bottom now causing problems... &/or the plant was just already unhappy/ stressed from overwatering as you mentioned and the repot event was just enough stress on a already stressed plant to cause it to need to drop a few leaves to best recover. That is browning or yellowing then dropping then almost completely defoliating was exactly what mine did that first stressful repot I did. I wouldnt stress too much about anything other then if there is turface dust in there as the plant should easily show renewed life in a matter of days/ few weeks but I do think it would benefit from being outside in full bright shade and the increased air movement is supposed to also help backbudding which I recall you mentioning. As long as it’s staying bt 60-95*F there that’s perfect.

@tapla... question... what do you mean by “ mature” when pinching the third “mature” leaf back to two leaves on any new branch... as in fully formed and opened out or am I supposed to wait for it to grow a certain size... my back budded new branches are popping leaves out like crazy/ each one now about to push out the forth leaf already in just 1.5 wks time. Here’s a pic of leaf size. Also, can I simply “pinch” off the terminal bud with my fingers/ or do I need to “cut” below the third leaf... just asking bc those three pushed leaves are VERY close together to cut a perfect angle of any sort and a lot still crowded all in the “mother” leafs axil.

And last question... how am I going to decide what “branches to keep” for a top heavy/
Topiary FLF (lol). For Starts what’s a good amount or range to stay within of primary branches off the main stem( not including my new leader). And Are there rules to say having overall an odd number of primary extensions ? I dint feel like I have any design sense yet when it comes to designing a trees shape

For reference... here are FLF Tree shapes i like...when I look at these though I’m not really “seeing” any secondary, tertiary, etc branches come off of the primary branches, but rather seems like it branches out and then I guess they never pinched them Back again??? Just a tad lost

I’d always recommend Ficus Benjamina or even Alii to anyone who wants the common indoor tree shape.

Both of these will naturally want to grow that way while the Ficus Lyrata will not.

Too this day I still don’t understand the appeal of the Lyrata.