Ficuses are one of the most beautiful plants you can have indoors when everything is going well! Indeed, with the beautiful and long leaves, they melt a lot of people.
The problem is, as we just said, everything has to go well for you to achieve this result. Sometimes things get complicated quickly, especially if you're not used to it.
You will make mistakes and will arrive for example at that your ficus has brown leaves. The leaves which will subsequently begin to fall. From then on, you will surely be confused about what to do.
Luckily, we're here to help and make sure you prune a balding ficus tree so that it ends up shapeless as quickly as possible. So, let's not waste another moment and let's get started!
Ficus - General information
There are a whole bunch of different ficus trees on the market, each with characteristics that will look better on some people than on others. This is why we invite you to discover them all in our article on this subject.
Before you prune a bald ficus, find out what's wrong
It may seem silly, but before pruning a bald ficus, you still need to have managed to get your hands on what can be problematic. The leaves did not fall for no reason and we will have to find out why!
Therefore, the first thing to check is the state of humidity of the soil and therefore whether the roots are still good; too much water could cause them to rot and therefore cause the leaves to fall.
Likewise, the roots may simply be cramped in the current pot and you will need to repot your ficus. like on this video before thinking about pruning a balding ficus to give it more space.
Finally, the last things that can be causing this loss of foliage are environmental factors. The most common is too much exposure to light which will burn the leaves.
In this case, you just have to move the plant back from your window and it will resolve itself. Likewise, you can have leaf loss if you put your ficus too close to a heat source.
Finally, before pruning a balding ficus, make sure the plant is not drafty, it hates that. If you haven't found anything, know that moving your ficus can have this effect.
Did he have brown leaves?
To eliminate some of these problems and be able to prune a balding ficus, one of the main indicators is the leaves themselves. Did they fall directly or not?
If not, have they taken on a brown tint? Because if this is the case, you surely have a problem that it is at the level of water intake, exposure to the sun or even worse, disease.
Indeed, it is clearly on one of these three things that you will have to orient yourself before pruning a bald ficus. Once it's done, you can move on to the operation itself.
How to prune a bald ficus?
Pruning a balding ficus can be scary and is right. Indeed, especially if it is the victim of a disease or bad weather and part of the plant is dead, it is still very weak.
As much as possible, we advise you to prune a balding ficus around spring which is the time when your plant will be at the peak of its annual form and can therefore easily recover.
Then, what will have to be done first is to evacuate the dead branches to make room for the new branches. But beware, if cutting dead branches is beneficial, the news is not.
You risk weakening the plant even more by doing this. So, before pruning these branches, remember to check that they are dead. > For example, you can scrape the bark.
You will then see the general state of the branches. If they are black or brown, you can cut them off they are dead. If, on the contrary, they are still green, you should not cut them, the leaves have only fallen, but the branch is alive.
Our advice for pruning your bald ficus
Pruning is an important stage in the life of your plant. It is not that complicated if you have the right technique but also the right tools.
How to make it take back beautiful leaves?
Afterwards, you can prune a bald ficus in the same way as all ficus by cutting off the ends of the branch so that it grows pretty leaves instead, but again be careful.
As we have said, it is restrictive for the plant and if it has ever suffered a lot, we strongly advise you to give it time to breathe before trying to prune it again immediately.
Give it a few weeks, or even months, before you jump into a new size. In addition, this will already allow the leaves to regrow properly before trying to densify everything.
