The first bend in the trunk is result of a previous pruning. I noticed that when I was looking at the first images. Looks like the trunk bifurcated (split to form a 'Y') at that point and one side of the bifurcation was pruned off. In mid-June, the lowest branch marked in yellow should be cut back to 4 leaves. The long branch moving left/ marked yellow in the image above, and the branch moving right/ marked yellow should also be pruned back to 2 leaves. The leader, above these 2 branches and marked in yellow, should be pruned back to a leaf that points in the direction you want the leader to grow. This is called 'directional pruning'. Example: With the above pruning cut made, the new branch (shows as a leaf only, but it's a new branch) in the axil of the leaf on the right will want to grow to the right. If you wanted the new leader to move left, you would prune lower, to just above the leaf on the left. A cut above the leaf attached to the severed part would give rise to a branch growing away from the grower. Because there are other forces in play, like phototropism (tendency for plants to bend toward the brightest light source), there is no guarantee the branch will grow where you wish, so you might need to encourage the new branch that forms in the axil of the leader's top leaf to grow where YOU want it to. I mentioned this already, but I'll reiterate that your tree will respond to pruning with a much higher degree of enthusiasm if you do the pruning A) while the tree's energy reserves are highest, and B) when the tree's current ability to carry on photosynthesis is peaking, both of which will occur during the summer solstice (21 June). 'Father's Day' is easy to remember. If you intend to repot, do it at the same time you prune. While you could probably remove a little soil to cut through (2 cuts) the kinked root that emerges from and returns too the soil, I would do it at the same time you prune the top. Reason: Pruning the top decreases the volume of foliage the roots must work to keep hydrated. It also makes it less likely that a branch on the same side of the tree where the kinked root is attached will die. When a tree is unable to keep certain parts hydrated, it sheds those parts. Unfortunately, they seem to always choose to shed parts the grower feels are essential to the o/a composition/ shape/ style of the tree. Some trees, like junipers/ yews/ arborvitae/ .... , develop a dedicated relationship between individual roots and branches, such that damage to a particular root will kill a particular branch. Notice the live veins connecting roots to individual branches below: This tree ^^^ has 4 branches and 4 live veins. Other trees lack the direct relationship between particular roots and branches. For the genus Ficus, the relation is moderate, but the lower a branch is (and the shorter the tree is) the greater the likelihood that death of a branch or root will result in the dieback of it's counterpart on the opposite side of the root to shoot connection. When serious about earning a green thumb, the largest step a container gardener can take in that direction will come from understanding how water behaves in container media and what that means to the health of your plants' root systems; this, because issues with root function and/or health cause the most problems by far, with some of them seemingly unrelated to root health. Two examples that lend support to the later contention are infections by disease pathogens and insect predation due to a less than robust metabolic rate, caused by limited root function or poor root health. A healthy plant will remain forever elusive unless and until we are able to maintain root systems in an elevated state of vitality (health). Al

Insofar as how it would impact root health, there is no difference between plastic and high-fired clay/ceramic. If you can see no crazing (myriad small cracks reminiscent of a fish net with small holes) in the glaze, you can eliminate anything toxic making its way from the pot to the grow medium. If you haven't fertilized or used any type of tonics, insecticides, leaf shine, detergents, etc., it's a very good bet you have unwittingly over-watered due to the fact there is no way for water to evaporate or be used by the plant as the new medium is not colonized by roots and remains a hostile environment to roots due to lack of oxygen. My suggestion would be to lift the plant from the pot to see it the lower reaches of the soil column are saturated. If so, see figure D below. Remove the soil from the new pot, place an over-turned pot in the bottom of the pot so it fits snugly, and cover the drain hole of the over-turned pot with something that won't rot (it does not need to allow water to drain through the hole in the over-turned pot, but it's ok to use a screen if you wish). Mix enough of the soil that falls away from the roots or remains in the large pot with an equal measure of perlite and fill to the top of the over-turned pot, then reposition your plant on top of the pot. and back-fill with the remaining soil w/o the extra perlite. The shaded areas in the images above represents perched water. By comparing D to A, you can see the over-turned pot significantly reduces the amount of excess (perched) water your soil will b e able to hold, so air will return the the soil much faster. The operational words for the moisture level of a grow medium is damp/moist, never wet/soggy. After having put the pot to work as ballast, start checking moisture levels with a "tell" you can make from a wooden dowel rod. It is far superior to a finger or a "moisture meter". More about using a 'tell': Using a 'tell' Over-watering saps vitality and is one of the most common plant assassins, so learning to avoid it is worth the small effort. Plants make and store their own energy source – photosynthate - (sugar/glucose). Functioning roots need energy to drive their metabolic processes, and in order to get it, they use oxygen to burn (oxidize) their food. From this, we can see that terrestrial plants need plenty of air (oxygen) in the soil to drive root function. Many off-the-shelf soils hold too much water and not enough air to support the kind of root health most growers would like to see; and, a healthy root system is a prerequisite to a healthy plant. Watering in small sips leads to avoid over-watering leads to a residual build-up of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil from tapwater and fertilizer solutions, which limits a plant's ability to absorb water – so watering in sips simply moves us to the other horn of a dilemma. It creates another problem that requires resolution. Better, would be to simply adopt a soil that drains well enough to allow watering to beyond the saturation point, so we're flushing the soil of accumulating dissolved solids whenever we water; this, w/o the plant being forced to pay a tax in the form of reduced vitality, due to prolong periods of soil saturation. Sometimes, though, that's not a course we can immediately steer, which makes controlling how often we water a very important factor. In many cases, we can judge whether or not a planting needs watering by hefting the pot. This is especially true if the pot is made from light material, like plastic, but doesn't work (as) well when the pot is made from heavier material, like clay, or when the size/weight of the pot precludes grabbing it with one hand to judge its weight and gauge the need for water. Fingers stuck an inch or two into the soil work ok for shallow pots, but not for deep pots. Deep pots might have 3 or more inches of soil that feels totally dry, while the lower several inches of the soil is 100% saturated. Obviously, the lack of oxygen in the root zone situation can wreak havoc with root health and cause the loss of a very notable measure of your plant's potential. Inexpensive watering meters don't even measure moisture levels, they measure electrical conductivity. Clean the tip and insert it into a cup of distilled water and witness the fact it reads 'DRY'. One of the most reliable methods of checking a planting's need for water is using a 'tell'. You can use a bamboo skewer in a pinch, but a wooden dowel rod of about 5/16” (75-85mm) would work better. They usually come 48” (120cm) long and can usually be cut in half and serve as a pair. Sharpen all 4 ends in a pencil sharpener and slightly blunt the tip so it's about the diameter of the head on a straight pin. Push the wooden tell deep into the soil. Don't worry, it won't harm the root system. If the plant is quite root-bound, you might need to try several places until you find one where you can push it all the way to the pot's bottom. Leave it a few seconds, then withdraw it and inspect the tip for moisture. For most plantings, withhold water until the tell comes out dry or nearly so. If you see signs of wilting, adjust the interval between waterings so drought stress isn't a recurring issue. Questions? Al

So I seem to have been able to do all that I wanted to know how to do. Now for some comments... I like knowing how to change the font, but I agree, I would use it rarely. What I find myself wishing I could do on a fairly regular basis, is putting something in italics, underlining a book title, putting a word in bold. As for the color, something else I would rarely go to the trouble of using, but again, I would like to know how to for that rare occasion when I might. Such as in a Christmas greetings thread or something like that. Most of the time I would not take the time to do that. As a matter of fact, I use the firefox browser and if you notice when I tried to use the color tags, I thought it didn't work. That is because firefox limits html commands when using their browser and I didn't see any red words. I realized that you did and I went and used Internet Explorer and sure enough, I saw the word red in red ink. Strangely, I didn't see the other effects. That was confusing and I have no idea why. BUT, in the browser that I use every day, the commands I wanted to use work fine with the directions you gave me. So I am all set. The thing I wanted most to do and will probably use more frequently than the others, is posting a photo inside the post. I used to use Tinypic, but at some point something changed and I was pasting the command they were providing and it still wasn't working. So these directions worked for me. I compared the command you were suggesting to the command Tinypic provided and they were different. But I think I would still use the Tinypic site to upload the photo and then just change the command where needed. Finally, on Nan's concern about resizing the photos. I assume that the concern is the time it takes to open a thread for someone on dial up when one of the photos is oversized. So the photo I posted above, is oversized? If that is a problem, I will go back and review the directions for resizing. Hope that helps. :-)

Update: more trouble shooting led me to check the DSL speed. The download was about 7 Mbps, and satisfactory but the upload was as low as 80 Kbps - discussing with the Teleco technical support (Century Link) the evening of Thursday last, led to the diagnosis the Telephone modem was malfunctioning, in fact it completely stopped working on the power-down/up test. The CL representative could not provide any access to a replacement modem, but they would ship me one for $15 three days (bet business days, so not until Monday or Tuesday). They could ship overnight for $25. I told them ship 3 day I'm checking with Comcast an may move my service there. I up an running on Comcast at a so-called 105 Mbps which checks out closer to 15 mbps, about the same up/down. Not sure what the 105 Mbps is about. The good news cable, Comcast/Xfinity, was able via over the counter purchase at Walmart of a Cable Modem to put me back in service over my existing TV cable access in a matter of minutes. Down side, we don't want to change our email address. I will check to see how low a price I can get from Century Link and retain my email/ISP account. So far the browser works great.