lori_15
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Location: south BC Canada, elev 226M (909ft) zone 6b

How to Encourage Shoots for a Fuller Rubber Tree?

My transplant from top of rubber tree plant finally is producing leaves. But it is growing straight up. I would like to encourage more shoots on stem down from top to have a more full plant. I read that if one pinches the new shoot starting from top this is entice shoots to form below.
Is that true?
Any other advise. Plant is in window bright lite and not much direct sun.

imafan26
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Yes, pinching will cause most plants to branch out.

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applestar
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With rubber tree, it oozes white latex sap from any injury. Sometimes, if you pinch or cut to shorten and encourage branching, the oozing sap collects and covers the leaf nodes where new buds will grow ...and harden. When that happens, they sometimes won't grow from those nodes.

So the best way to avoid this is to have a moistened paper towel ready, and cover the wound. Keep it moist and when the plant stops oozing, remove it. You can also constantly dilute the latex by spraying with water (I imagine this is the natural way -- heavy rain and humidity in the native jungles.forests)

The latex trail can look unsightly so doing this is also cosmetic.

-- don't be afraid to chop it down lower than just pinching the very top. Rubber tree will grow side shoots easily. Oh! Also, it tries to grow straight up because it IS a tree and if in lower light conditions, it thinks it needs to grow up above the surrounding vegetation to reach the sun-lit canopy. It will tend to grow more side shoots more readily after pinching/tipping if placed in brighter light (put a lamp next to it with daylight bulb in it for supplemental light for example). Otherwise, it might just grow a single new shoot from the very top as the leader and keep on trying to grow taller.

imafan26
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Thanks applestar. Rubber trees are common here and sometimes they can be a weed. The latex is a problem. You certainly don't want to get it in your eyes so be careful handling it. I have broken off many tops before accidentally and otherwise and have yet to encounter a problem of the latex blocking a node, but I guess that is possible.

lori_15
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Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2015 1:27 pm
Location: south BC Canada, elev 226M (909ft) zone 6b

am following up this post...I now have two rubber tree plants from same source .... they are both in same location in my house.
both are growing tall. one is producing new leaves all the time and other is stagnant. the stagnant one has quite lite soil...think I used lot of perlite or vermiculite with potting soil.

should I repot that one with potting soil?

could I possibly put both plants together in a huge pot?

in pic, I have put a yardstick behind them to see how tall they are.

can't see pic in preview....did it get uploaded?
tried again....but got error msg: not possible to determine dimension of image. please verify url is correct.

what is max size for image uploads?

imafan26
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Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

I would repot the plant. It is not that it does not like the perlite, but it is a rain forest plant so it is probably drying out faster. More compost or peat moss will boost the water retention. I usually don't put ficus on the ground. It likes to escape, so I double pot them and keep them up on a stack of concrete blocks or a stand will work. That way you can see when the roots are coming out. Root pruning will keep it in the same pot longer. You can put both in the same pot, but they need to be repotted often because they have an aggressive roots system. I do not grow ficus elastica. I have grown f. benjamina, f. microcarpa, f. carica "Brown Turkey", and a little leaf fig that I don't know the species of. I have a Brown Turkey in the herb garden in a keystone planter about 3 ft in diameter. It was grown from a lateral branch so it grows more like a bush than a tree. The roots do try to escape the planter so they do have to be cut off. Cuttings grown in a one gallon pot will still fruit. I usually grow Chinese banyon or small leaf figs as bonsai plants. I have had to cut off their escape roots multiple times. One was over 3 feet long. Figs are good beginner bonsai plants as they have flexible branches that do not easily break, grow relatively fast, and have nice root structures especially for over the rock designs. They are fussy about light, but mine are always outside anyway. They take to root pruning well. Elastica has nice colored leaves. However, the leaves of elastica are too big for bonsai.



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