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Repotting a 25yr old Ficus, Advice Please? 8 years 9 months ago #16045

  • Auk
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Reducing the foliage will put less of a strain on the roots after repotting.


I've understood that actually put it under more stress:

"The removal of top growth sends a signal to the plant that there is something wrong above ground. The plant goes into crisis mode and reacts by initiating the growth of dormant buds to replace the leaves it has just lost. This growth process requires energy; also known as a food source. The plant mobilizes stored food from the roots to the new growing points and puts a lot of it’s nutrient reserves into making new leaves.

This all sounds good, except that the plant also needs to grow new roots. This also requires stored food and nutrient reserves. The plant now has to share it’s reserves between the two processes. The net result is that both suffer."

Source:
www.gardenmyths.com/transplanting-should-you-reduce-top-growth/

Seems to make sense to me?

However:

"Having said that, there are some extreme situations. If a woody plant has lost almost all of it’s roots, I might cut it back because without this it will die. The cuts should be made to take out large branches. You want to eliminate a lot of the dormant buds so they can’t grow and take energy from root growth."

So, if you "reduce the rootball a lot", you would not just reduce the foliage mass?
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Repotting a 25yr old Ficus, Advice Please? 8 years 9 months ago #16049

  • leatherback
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If you take the whole sentence you qill see that I actually am writing pretty much the same thing..

Optional item 4: If you expect to reduce the rootbal a lot, you could a few days beforehand already reduce the foliage mass.

I normally do this only by out-of season repotting, and/or layers.


Will go out and take a picture of the layer I separated yesterday as an example
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Repotting a 25yr old Ficus, Advice Please? 8 years 9 months ago #16050

  • leatherback
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This is deshojo airlayer I separated yesterday. I trimmed all the main branches earlier this week, to allow the wounds to dry op and let the plant recover water. I did this, because the roots are too small to provide moisture for the foliage. I was worrie the plant might not survive a transplant with only some 6 small roots.

But I did not remove leaves, I removed main branches (Red cuts) making sure a few leaves remained up to the cut, on a side branch. This will limit die-back ont he leftover branches.

As a benefit you might get loads of back-budding once the roots recover.

I did exactly the same with the 2 wisteria's and 2 lonicera's I dug up eaqsrlier, except that I could not remove the branches early. But in all cases the major above-ground material was removed.

I think you also need to see this in the light what you want to achieve. Transplanting a big tree at the right time of year, vss working the roots in the wrong season.

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