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It's been about 25 days since I've watered mine and it's about 10% - 20% moist in the soil still, dropped 15 leaves. I think it's because the soil holds on to water for too long

I think I am overwatering also. I have two ficus benjaminas, both inside two different rooms but both west facing window or door. Is the sun too intense at the end of the day when it is directly in the sun through glass?

Is it OK to leave the water in the bottom?

I gave it every week, but I noticed the plant weeps and many leaves have dropped. Now I will do what you do... Thank you for this!

Hiya, when can this be done, please?

Why have you allowed most of your fig trees to grow like Date palm trees !? Yes, notching does help in bud growth by stopping the growth of hormone Auxin top to bottom to inhibits the growth of buds to maintain dominance of the top branchers. By notching that growth inhibiting hormone stops growing through the bud and the buds gets a chance to grow most of the time but sometime you may have to refresh the notch if the bud is slow to grow. Most people cut off the top bud when a new fig plant reaches a desired height where one wants the tree to start branching somewhere between 12 to 18 inches instead of letting it grow straight up and the thinking of notching to create side branches.

Good advce.

What does it mean when the leaves start to droop?

It would be helpful to see how you extract a sucker from the base of the mother tree.

I tried it and it worked great. I now have three more scaffolding branches to choose from.

Will this process produce branching on Plumaria? Thank you. You have a very informative vid here.

Is that sucker impacting the other's growth or the other's not growing caused suckers to grow? Since this is not grafted, I think suckers are healthier.

Thank you so much! My Benjamina has started to have brown spots and the leaves were turning yellow. I’ve been watering her once a week, and your video has made me realize she doesn’t need that much water! I’ll slow down and make sure I check the top 1” and place my whole finger in as well (though I have tiny hands sooo lol).

Suckers usually grow from cuttings that are too long. As the cutting is trying to root and grow it finds it easier to sprout suckers than it does to push the nutrients to the top of the cuttings. The easiest cure for this is to make your cuttings shorter, 6 to 8 inches is usually a good length. No more no less. Learned this from an old Italian Fig Farmer who grew up on a fig farm.

Suckers pushed off from the main stem will root a lot better than a cutting cut off. That node on the end makes roots better than a cut.

Thank you!

Love

can i really get a answer to this . i planted a fig from the suckers that were coming out the side of the main stem in the soil. it is now a year old and 1 metre tall and looks healthy . still no fruit can i get a answer please.

What season do you do this in and when in that season - early mid late? And can I do it to peach tree? Thanks.

When should you do it?

How about an update on your in-ground fig trees?

i have a 30 year old fig and i dont know how to get rid of all the suckers, i did cut them all back to the ground but twice as many came up that next season, any suggestions please on how to control it or rid them

I have this huge plant in the front room and its leaves are sticky. I noticed the branches of the plant have Scales on it. I am spraying "NEEM oil RTU" spraying on it and cleaning the tiny scales from the branches. I repotted this plant in summer from a small container to this huge one and I spry painted the outside of the container in Golden color. I do not know what is causing the plant leaves to go "Sticky" like this. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks.

What’s the verdict?

if the suckers are so vigorous and even produce fruit so quickly, why would we want to remove them?

As others have stated, this was a very good straight to the point video with great explanation as to the process of the tree. But I see that this video is two years old, so I am hoping you will still see my question, which is; can you notch in more than one place? I bought a brown Turkey fig tree last year at the beginning of the summer. I live in Houston and this past winter we got hit again with several days of below freezing temperatures which caused my fig tree to come back without branches. Lots of leaves up and down the trunk and at the base of each leaf a fig grew, but no branches. Do I leave it alone, or would notching be a beneficial treatment, and if so, can it be done more than once? Because this type of fig is known to grow very large, and we don’t have a good spot for it in our yard, we decided on putting it in a very large pot, and it seems to be happy in the pot and with its location. And that it even grew wonderfully large and sweet figs was an unexpected, yet very pleasant surprise. But I grew up with a fig tree in my back yard that was huge, with loads of branches and more figs than we could consume, that this tree is now nothing more than one trunk with loads of leaves growing has me concerned. My apologies for the length of my comment and question(s), my goal was to give as much valuable information for you to hopefully provide me with a well informed answer.

My ficus has been doing great--in a very large, heavy clay pot on my patio. It got totally soaked in the hurricane-like rains we had in Southern Cal. Anything I can do to dry it out?

Our Ficus was planted through a purpose-built hole in the concrete slab foundation of our custom home (prior owner did that). It's right next to a sliding glass door and there's a large dirt garden area just outside. The sprinkler outside in the garden broke and flooded the ground. The Ficus leaves turned yellow, then very dry, brown, curled up, fell off. There was a 'bubbler' head sprinkler at the base of the tree - no water came out due to the pressure stolen by the broken sprinkler in the outside adjacent garden. "The tree's dying! I gotta water it, the leaves are brown and dry and dead, it needs water!" I fixed the outside sprinkler head and that restored water pressure to the bubbler. Within 4 minutes, a pond of water manifested at the base of the Ficus! It hit me - "this tree shares the same ground area as the outside garden, which got water-saturated by that broken sprinkler head. The Ficus is dying from too much water!" I haven't watered it for a week, and after watching your excellent video, I'm not going to water it until it shows more signs of life. Very counterintuitive - "too much water drys the leaves and turns them brown and they fall" .

I have multiple ficus, and some I turned into bonsai. I use a free draining soil for the bonsai (lava rock, pine bark, pumice, perlite etc...) For the non-bonsai ficus that is in a normal planter, I used sifted organic soil. Basically taking all the peat and fines out of the soil helps it drain much better and dry within a week.

Thank you! I’ve just repotted my Benjimina due to signs of root rot. The soil was too wet. My question is when the compose is brand new from the packaging, what is the general time before watering? I assume the compose contained some moisture already? It feels that way. Thanks.

What if we eat leaf by mistake

I’m not understanding how to ID a node. Is a node where a branch used to be that was pruned? Can you show and tell how to find a node? Thanks.

Can you notch above more than one node on a branch?

Is it possible to root the suckers? Specially those coming from the ground. I took one out, unfortunately it did not have roots attached, I put it into a pot.

Just subscribed! Number 666!

I have the question.With the fig tree too high like your fig .Can we air layer on top and notching at domant bud to create new grow.Thanks

Thankyou so much, very informative video! 😊

Very helpful! I have a couple new fig trees and they all have suckers! like

Well it produce the same variety of fig?

I water mine every ten days and it's doing fine

Straight forward tutorial without the preamble that normally happens.... thank you

Hi Craig, This video was very helpful to me. I am using this on my tree here in San Jose, CA Thank you so much!

I water mine monthly and it has loads gree new leafs I put mine near a sunny window and it loves it there

Method starts at 3:16

Another smart South African. One of the best tutorials on notching. Plain and simple. Thanks!

What a nice informative video for a very useful technique thankyouuuu

how to do this with a much thicker trunk? Shenna Ripper Gold

Hi. Do you sell any of the cuttings? Would love to purchase a few cddn. Or could you advise where I could purchase a tree?

💚

Do fig suckers produce equally good fruit as the main trunk?