To defoliate or not to defoliate?

[Bonsai2014]

I have had this ficus for many years and have had issues wintering it. In my northern Wisconsin our winters don't offer much sunlight. Every year I struggled with defoliation when I was brought inside for the Fall/Winter even a South facing window did not suffice. Last year I upgraded to a really nice grow light and managed to only drop 3 leaves all winter. That was until I over watered it leaving for an short vacation. It dumped almost half of it's leaves. I repotted it almost two months ago, and with the warmer temperatures and sunlight, the branch tips have all sprouted new leaves.

To build ramification, I am wondering if defoliating is the right thing to do? I thought about removing all but the new leaves on the branch tips to encourage back budding to fill in.Right now a lot of branches are bare until the tips.

Not the best picture right now, but all comments are welcome.

 

[Redwood Ryan]

Defoliation won't help your ramification problem. Right now I'd let the branches grow out and thicken. Then, once they're thicker, you can begin to trim them back to get the branches to backbud.

 

[KennedyMarx]

It's been my experience that unless the tree is growing strongly defoliating like that will just stall the tree and the new foliage will spring out at the tips. Ryan's advice is spot on.

 

[amcoffeegirl]

So what do you do for this tree? Do you cut off the growing tips to see if you can get some back budding for a fuller looking tree? Not just removing the leaves from the tips but severing the actual end of the growing branchlettes.

 

[Redwood Ryan]

So what do you do for this tree? Do you cut off the growing tips to see if you can get some back budding for a fuller looking tree? Not just removing the leaves from the tips but severing the actual end of the growing branchlettes.

I'd let the branches grow out, then once they're thick enough, cut them back to a few leaves per branch and restart.

 

[Smoke]

Thoughts on defoliation

 

[agraham]

Don't defoliate. Listen to Ryan.

 

[Replikant]

I have a similar Retusa. I defoliated about 3 weeks ago and pruned back branches where needed. The new shoots are spectacular and back budding has occurred up to 1 inch further up older branches where there were no shoots/buds before. The results were so fast I plan to defoliate once more before the Fall with more appropriate wiring. All of this of course relies entirely on the health of the tree. I know mine was ready and could take it. Used correctly and in a timely fashion, defoliation can have an impressive do over effect. My Retusa's ramification at least doubled as a result of the defoliation process.

 

[Smoke]

I have a similar Retusa. I defoliated about 3 weeks ago and pruned back branches where needed. The new shoots are spectacular and back budding has occurred up to 1 inch further up older branches where there were no shoots/buds before. The results were so fast I plan to defoliate once more before the Fall with more appropriate wiring. All of this of course relies entirely on the health of the tree. I know mine was ready and could take it. Used correctly and in a timely fashion, defoliation can have an impressive do over effect. My Retusa's ramification at least doubled as a result of the defoliation process.

After defoliation did you cut any of the shoots or did you leave them all long?

EDIT: sorry I reread and seen that you did indeed prune.....nuff said.....