One more suggestion, that I forgot to mention, would be to give it more light. When they don't get sufficient light, they'll be more likely to shed any lower leaves that they can no longer support. Plus, the newer leaves will grow closer together on a stronger trunk, instead of much longer, in the search for brighter light.

Right now, mine is growing outdoors, where it gets some direct morning sun and bright, indirect sun throughout the rest of the day. If you do move it to a sunnier location, do it gradually over time, so your plant has plenty of time to properly adjust and its leaves don't get sunburned.

LOL, thanks for the reprimand! :)

Thanks for the response, and yes, I was thinking I didn't want to try notching until it grew taller. Not sure if notching prevents the tree from growing taller, however.?.

Notching won't prevent it from growing taller. The growth tip keeps all of the lower buds dormant, and notching above one of them enables that dormant bud to become active and begin growing. The notching inhibits the inhibitor, if that makes any sense, lol. The rest of the plant will continue to grow normally.

I agree with Tommyboy, low light makes lots of plants grow spindly and lose lower leaves.

Got your message - figured I'd reply here.

When a ficus other than one of the vining species gets to the point it can't hold its head up, it's telling you it wants more light. The options are to give it more light, support it mechanically with a stake or some other rigging (yuk), or shorten the plant which effectively stiffens the stem. It doesn't really stiffen the stem, but reducing the ht reduces the amount of deflection and makes it almost like the stem is stiffer. The best choice of the three is to shorten the plant, but that is at odds for your desire for a taller plant .... which means you need to decide how you want to move forward.

The stem thickens in a direct relation to how much photosynthesizing surface there plant has and how much light hits that surface. To realize your goals, it's distinctly to your advantage to maximize the number of leaves and give the plant as much light as possible. Low light does cause loss of low leaves and leaves furthest from the growing tips of branches - so does root congestion.

If you want a recipe for robust growth, it's this:

Use a very large pot and a very fast (draining) soil, like the gritty mix - one you can't over-water unless you work hard at it. Give the plant all the light and air movement it will take (bright light and air movement stimulate back-budding and activation of latent buds), and feed heavily - a full strength dose of a good fertilizer (like MG 12-4-8 or Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 [my favorite]) weekly during strong growth periods.

To maximize ramification (leaf and branch density), regularly cutting all branches with 4 or more leaves back to 2 leaves will force the highest number of leaves and branches into the least amount of space. As the plant grows, you can select branches growing toward the vertical as the leader, pruning competing secondary leaders so they don't confuse the eye by making the tree appear to have 2 heads.

You can notch above a leaf or tip prune to force back-budding, or start pruning everything but the main leader (unless it's flopping over) back to 2 leaves.

Everything is easier if you can keep your plants in good health. Good plant health starts with good root health. As long as you have to fight your soil for control of root health, progress will move ahead much more slowly than if the root system was enjoying good health. If you have both the soil AND insufficient light w2orking to limit your efforts, progress can still be made, but it will be much, much slower than if conditions were ideal.

Al

If you put it outside and let it be exposed to a breeze, the trunk will get stronger. I would cut it back though, and put it in an area with more light. The parts that you cut will root easily. You might try putting them back in the pot to root.

Ok, 2 questions:

How much pine bark fines do you think I should order to make a good mix for this rubber tree, and my ficus lyrata. I'll be ordering it from Amazon, and the largest size bag I see for the size I need is a 2 gallon. I'm also ordering pumice (I don't like to use perlite) and it's coming in 16 dry quarts. Will this be enough once I include the requisite amount of sphagnum peat?

And any good tips on rooting? I usually just root in water, is there a "better" way. Oh, and since these tips are more mature, is it okay if I leave them in full sun to root, or will that be asking too much?

Ok, that's more than 2 questions - I lied :)...

D

full sun is not good for rooting cuttings. Bright light, Id say. A little bit of morning sun should be fine. Rubber tree roots just fine if you put it directly into the soil.

Not sure about the other question. I just grow in miracle gro for convenience. I like to just buy a bag of soil and dump into the pot. Ah, laziness.

Just so I'm clear, I'm cutting the existing stems back to where there are only 2-3 leaves on the trunk. There are no branches, so I don't have to worry about those.

Sorry, this is my first time doing a hard prune, so I'm a little gun shy... :-)

Dont worry about your rubber tree. You can lop off the entire top and it will still grow back from the bare trunk.

But by all means, leave it a couple leaves. It can only help.

Cool. Thanks for all the help, getting to work now!

Whether a F elastic will tolerate being pruned back to a bare stub depends on several factors, but centers around how much reserve energy a plant has. W/o leaves to make the plant's food, the plant must depend on the energy it has stored to push a new flush of growth, so to be safe, only plants in good health and in areas with long growing seasons should be completely defoliated. Some ficus respond poorly to complete defoliation. For instance, it's easy to lose even healthy benjaminas in lower zones (lower than 7) if they aren't VERY healthy when you defoliate.

To be safe, I would only cut back to the extent you're leaving at least 2 healthy leaves on each branch or stem. AFTER the tree backbuds, you'll have further opportunity to cut the plant back additionally, with practically nothing in the way of risk.

I'd suggest you try a mix that is between 75-85% pine bark with a little perlite and a little of your old soil. Something that looks like this:
{{gwi:20508}}

Al