How to Treat a Ficus After Frost

Remove damaged plant tissue in spring when the plant's buds break. Use scissors and cut off the dead foliage if the plant was damaged after bud break, but wait to remove any twigs or stems.

Remove the dead wood on ficus damaged before bud break as soon as the danger of frost in your area has passed but before the plant produces leaves. Scratch a piece of seemingly dead wood with your fingernail before cutting it. If the wood is green it is still alive and shouldn't be cut.

Use the pruners to cut back wood to the healthy green wood. Cut 1/4 inch above a bud or outside a branch collar. The branch collar is the swelling from the parent wood out to the secondary wood. It should not be cut so as to prevent injury to the parent wood.

Apply a half-cup of high nitrogen fertilizer, such as 8-4-4, per inch of trunk. Mix the fertilizer into the soil at the base of the plant out to the drip line where the finer feeder roots are located. Use a small hand rake to mix it into the top 3 inches of soil. Water the area until the soil puddles up to help the fertilizer leach into the soil.

Provide shade for smaller plants. Use a mallet to set up two stakes on the sunny southern side of the tree. The loss of foliage and twigs means the plant cannot provide its own shade and is in danger of sun scald. Place a large piece of shade cloth over the stakes during the high heat of the day. Remove the stakes and discontinue the shade cloth when the tree has produced leaves.