My Ficus trees live outside except the few months of winter we have. They are tall and large and getting unmanageable. Do you have any trimming tips for me? I have never been good at tree trimming anyway, but I have to get this one right. I will root the trimmings and give them away at the local plant swap. Help?

I think it is pretty easy to trim them, they make topiary out of ficus here. Just pick a shape you want and start cutting would be my guess. Even if you don't want it cut to a shape, it's will get thicker and fuller if you cut it back.

extranjera said:I think it is pretty easy to trim them, they make topiary out of ficus here. Just pick a shape you want and start cutting would be my guess. Even if you don't want it cut to a shape, it's will get thicker and fuller if you cut it back.

I simply start hacking away? Sounds easy enough. Thanks.

I agree, just like a bad hair cut, in two weeks, nobody will know. They are forgiving. And they will grow back. Cut as you like to see it grow. Make it yours!

All good suggestions. Like ShadyGreenThumb, I must bring my 20 year old fiddle-ficus in for approximately 4 months of over-wintering. I live in NE Mississippi. I have to cut this plant back twice a year, in the spring and in the fall, and cut off approximately 1 to 1 1/2 ft each time. That is the only way I can keep this plant within 6-7 feet and get it through my porch door. Good luck in rooting the cuttings though. I have (tried to) root them from cuttings for well over a decade, twice a year, and have had many more failures than successes. I now constantly air-layer the branches, having better success in rooting this way than I ever did by rooting her cuttings.

Don't expect to see new growth from where you take the cuttings for 4-6 wks. Occasionally you won't even get any new growth there at all. When it does branch, you could have anywhere from 1-3 new branches growing from the cut. Just no way to predict branching or rooting.

I trimmed back pretty hard in some places and made my ficus trees manageable. I already miss their big weeping limbs but it had to be done. I rooted a ton of branchces.

Early this spring, I rooted a broken branch by simply sticking back into the pot. It took without hormones? I was more careful with this bunch and used rooting hormone. I even got crazy and braided three branches together. That was a risk! What if only 2 take root? I will have a dead braid. Oh well, better than tossing them into the trash and worth my time as I so enjoy replanting. If they take, I will be bringing 20 little trees to the Plant Swap and giving away others. I don't have pictures to show because for some reason , my phone refuses to upload all of the sudden.

Here's a ficus cutting. I hope they all three take root. That would be awesome!

Oh, now I see that we are talking about two totally different species of ficus trees.

Yes, mine are common ficus benjimina/Weeping Fig. One was a gift when we moved into our home 20 years ago, a standard tree you can buy at any garden center. The other I bought as a tiny 4" pot at a local hardware store when we moved to the area in 1982. I had another but I lost it during our big freeze. That was one I purchased as a tree to grow in our garden bathroom window. How do I know the difference? I just do. The trunks were all different. Now I am growing (I hope) clones.

When I lived in Pascagoula, Mississippi, I built a house with a 24' ceiling in the "great room". The house was 2 blocks from the Gulf of Mexico. There was a circular stairway going up that expanse and at the base, in a tiled 10'x10' tiled "plant" area, I had a Benjamin fucus. When we moved in it was a 6' plant. When I sold the house, 16 years later, that ficus was up to the ceiling, inside the house. Kind of neat to have a tree that size in the middle of your great room. Hurricane Katrina, ten years later, destroyed the plant but not the house. Life is full of highs and lows, but going back after Katrina, and seeing the loss of so many homes, plants, and yes, lives, really brings home the fact that we need to treat each and every day like it will be our last. I'm sorry if I have become somewhat melancohly. Another hurricane has struck my beloved Gulf coast and I still have many friends there.