Virens defoliation

[Rainbow Fig]

Pruned July 2014 - Copy.JPG

Hi,
I have grown this ficus virens from a seedling plucked from a rock in 1997 and have styled it only during leaf fall. this year is the first time I have had smaller than normal leaf size. I am wondering if mid-late summer defoliation can achieve better ramification and smaller leaf size? Tree is about 90+cm from soil level. It is pretty shaggy now, but have been a bit resistant to defoliate outside natural leaf fall. Cheers Greg

[Ray]

I defoliate mine 3 times during the growing season and it does very little to help reduce the leaf size. Instead of defoliating, a better way to reduce leaf size and build ramification, is to tip prune/cut back new growth. This requires constant vigilant work though, something I struggle with. New growth is quite fast and leaf size gets big very quickly. I was told by the previous owner of mine that they are a very hard leaf to reduce in size.

[Rainbow Fig]

Thanks Ray, I will get a bit more vigilant on the trimming.