Specialty Gardening: Unique Indoor bodhi tree (Ficus religiosa) for monastery, 2 by Rok123456

Rok123456 wrote:
I have a very unique situation I will try to explain in detail. First our horticulture skill level would be “novice” or “beginner” at best. From this post, I am hoping to gain an overall long-term strategy to produce the desired results over a 15+ year period. The tree in its current form (picture attached) stretches 6’ tall (not including pot) with little outward (horizontal) growth, in addition to the main stalk three smaller stalks have started growing from the base ranging from 1’-2’ in length. The tree is currently outside but as our first night in the in the 30’s comes tomorrow it will be inside soon. For the winter we will supply the tree with low window light and supplement with 600w of Led lighting to provide sufficient growth during the winter months. At the moment the tree is small enough to move without difficulty and we plan to move it outside after winter. For this stage my main questions revolve around proper pruning to produce the desired shape over the long term. I have read a lot of information on this forum concerning soil type (gritty), fertilizing, and watering habits so to save time these details can be avoided unless they differ from the general habits found on the forum.

Desired Shape

Eventually the tree will be placed behind a Buddha Statue (picture attached) and fill the area behind it. As well, in the end, the tree will only be viewed from one direction.

The dimensions of the space behind the statue:

Floor 12’
Walls 6’
Ceiling 45 deg pitch, 8’ length from wall to peak

Difficulties:

The area pictured will have no natural lighting and require 100% artificial lighting year round. Any advice in this area is appreciated. Ideally how many hours of light would the tree like? How much light would a tree of this size require?

For this winter we have 2 300W led DIY grow lights producing approximately 70,000 lm. This seems to be on par for trees this size and larger. (though not a lot of info about growing trees with artificial lights) The biggest problem I see is that with the tree height the lights will have trouble providing good coverage. The top of the tree will be 18” from the light while the bottom would be 8’ from the light. Would it be best to mount the lights on either side of the tree to provide better coverage? Would this help the tree grow out instead of up?

An overview/outline of how best to train, grow, and develop this tree into the space, any comments and any suggested reference material that could help expand our understanding of this unique project would be greatly appreciated.