Ficus pruning schedule

Horticulture
1

Hi all, just got a ficus microcarpa to play with. Small thing still in development.

Question re pruning:
Would this be similar to most other trees re schedule?
Structural pruning in early spring/fall, refinement pruning in summer? Or does it operate on a different clock?

I’m in South Australia so we go through 40C summers. Winter rarely drops below zero.

Siang

2

I have a tiger bark ficus and find that it’s happy to be trimmed while it’s actively growing with warmer temperatures. They can be treated like a broadleaf evergreen though. I pinch mine to keep proportions and energy distributed evenly. My tree comes in for the coldest parts of “winter” when night temps sit around 40°(4C) but then it’s right back out for the sunny parts of the day. It’s grown consistently with this schedule.

They’re a pretty forgiving tree

2 Likes
3

I’ve just got the tigerbark as well. It’s still got lots of thickening to do though. Would u let it grow out unhindered until desired thickness is achieved then prune back hard before the spring flush? Or does it need to be pruned back constantly.

4

I would think keeping more foliage on the tree would help it thicken. However, I am not done trying to thicken mine. I’m not sure yet what would work best.