It's time to pull these kiddos indoors

When we purchased our home in the fall of 1990, one criterion was to find a home with a sunroom.  After enjoying a Florida room and wicker loaned to me by my in-laws, I wanted to recreate that feeling of cottage coziness. I purchased vintage wicker and hung ferns along the wall to wall windows.  The wicker proved to be uncomfortable, the ferns shed, and the ficus plants kept outgrowing their space allotment.  The romance with wicker and lots of indoor plants died after a few years. 

I kept two plants in the sunroom.  These two ficus (is the plural fici?) came with me in 1991 as 2 foot fledglings from Walmart.  As you can see, both are over 6 feet now and that's only after being pruned in February (when I pull them out to the patio) and in August (when I start planning to push these jokers back in).

I love the canopy aspect of the ficus.  Care is not difficult.  We've repotted a couple of times and I'm determined not to let them get any bigger so I have to control their room to grow.  During the summer, I water them 3-4 times a week.  After I pull them back inside, some of the leaves will yellow and fall off initially (response to a change in environment) but the plants respond to once a week watering,   Because they need light, I kept the recessed fluorescent lights despite our paint and ceiling contractor telling me I needed to put in canned lights when we repainted in August.  More light, however,means more water is needed.  Our sunroom has lots of windows so they should do fairly well until I can drag them out again in late February (or after frost).  This November will be the 20th year that these plants have graced our home.  They are now family.