Willow Leaf Ficus from Meehans

Redwood Ryan

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Hi everyone,


A friend and I took a trip up to Meehans Miniatures, which is about an hour from where I live, to get a look at the place. Well, for me to take a look. He goes about once a year. Anyway, the place is great. They've got about 3 or 4 greenhouses stocked with mostly tropical trees. There are tons of outdoor trees as well, but they were, of course, outside. While wondering around I found this little gem, a Willow Leaf Ficus with about a 2.5 inch trunk. I really like it, but I don't think it is ready for a finished pot just yet. There are some roots I am going to remove as they don't fit. So tomorrow I'll repot it into a shallow pot and let it grow, then work on some of those roots. Thoughts?

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my opinion, on a ficus, the roots are allowed to go a little crazy!!! If it bothers you that much you might try other means than removal... such as wiring them in the direction you want them to go, when repotting, or perhaps having them grow over a rock... Nice tree!!! When repotting in a shallow pot I would make sure it is not to much bigger than the pot it is currently in... when ficus some times get a little rootbound, the roots will really take off...
 

Redwood Ryan

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I repotted this guy so I can get a new root system going, then hopefully be able to work on those top roots:


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The reason I repotted it lower is because some roots were growing and had been chopped off, probably to fit the pot, so I'm hoping by planting it a bit deeper that I can get those roots to sprout back and keep growing. Now I just wait for it to fill that pot with roots, then begin work on the roots.
 

Redwood Ryan

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dead? sorry, man.


Yep, unfortunately. When I bought it I noticed it was cracking in a certain spot on the trunk, after some investigation I found out it was actually rotting. I took out a knife and cut back to the live part of the trunk and covered in cut paste. Things were going fine. Then a few months ago I took a peek under the cut paste to see how far it had come with healing. I then covered it back up with some cut paste I had bought from the Meehans and that they swore by.

Checked on it tonight and found even more rotting, almost as if water had gotten under the cut paste and was trapped there, rotting out the whole trunk. It's actually still alive, but the only growth is from the very bottom.
 

edprocoat

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Sorry to hear about that Ryan. I had an unexpected freeze that caught my tropicals before ai left Ohio, weird thing was they all came back really healthy then one by one all died. I lost my Schefflera, two nice ficus and a few others ones I had a while, but a stump I cut down survived. The stump I was about to toss out and it spited me by living. It sucks losing a tree, it seems I can get real attached to them over time.

ed
 

Redwood Ryan

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Sorry to hear about that Ryan. I had an unexpected freeze that caught my tropicals before ai left Ohio, weird thing was they all came back really healthy then one by one all died. I lost my Schefflera, two nice ficus and a few others ones I had a while, but a stump I cut down survived. The stump I was about to toss out and it spited me by living. It sucks losing a tree, it seems I can get real attached to them over time.

ed

Thanks Ed. Luckily I've never had a freak spell cold kill one, but it sucks losing one regardless. I know what you mean about getting attached to them, it's very easy to do!

But hey, like Aidan said, time to replace it by going back up to Meehans ;)
 
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