A once-doomed houseplant plays its role at Christmas yet again

Ficus redux in 2013 (with Martha)

By the time Liz and I bought our first (and only) house in 1988, we had been together for four years, and married for two. So we brought lots of stuff with us when we moved from our apartment in Hallowell, Maine, to our 1870s Victorian in nearby Augusta.

One of those possessions was a small ficus benjamina (aka, a fig tree) that we had bought in 1987 or 1988, while living in Hallowell. It was less than two feet tall, an unobtrusive houseplant that settled into a spot near a south-facing window in our living room.

In the years that followed, the tree grew by leaps and bounds. It required regular pruning as it fought valiantly to swallow up the room. Even then, it eventually became so tall that its upper branches brushed the high ceiling.
 
The ficus routinely lost some of its leaves each fall. Removing them from the living-room rug became an annual ritual. But the plant retained most of its foliage, and a growth spurt invariably followed.

Over time, the fig became so large and lush and impressive that it doubled as a live Christmas tree, complete with lights and ornaments. It took two sets of lights to get the job done, thanks to the tree's height and girth.
 
In recent years, though, the loss of leaves worsened. There was very little new growth. The branches looked increasingly forlorn. By 2012, the leaf drop had become a deluge, and the ficus lost virtually all of its remaining foliage. It was bare and barren, a sad and pathetic reminder of what once had been. Christmas lights simply would have accentuated the tree's sad look. After a quarter of a century, Liz and I decided it was time to say goodbye.

Even in its nakedness, the ficus was too big to remove from the house intact. So I grabbed a handsaw late last year and began dismantling the plant bit by bit, until all that was left was a truncated skeleton - a shortened trunk with a few very small branches.

But something stayed my hand as I was about to make one last pass with the saw. A few bright, seemingly healthy leaves clung to one of the remaining branches. There were 13 leaves, in fact, so few that they were easy to count. Although it seemed like a long shot, we decided to give the fig tree, or what was left of it, another chance.

Within days, the number of leaves doubled, then tripled, then increased so rapidly that I lost count. New shoots emerged, and the ficus grew fuller and taller. Two year later, it’s almost five feet tall, and its uppermost branches inch ever closer to the ceiling. Tt lost no leaves this fall, and I've trimmed it at least twice already, to maintain its symmetry. Best of all, it’s large enough to support a few Christmas lights.

Renewed and rejuvenated by the most extreme of prunings, the ficus now seems sure to make it to its 30th "birthday," and beyond. There was no divine intervention involved - simply nature taking advantage of a last-minute reprieve. But we still like to celebrate this reborn houseplant as our own small Christmas miracle.