Beginner Gardening: Can you force a tree to grow leaves and branches downwards?, 1 by countingcrows

countingcrows wrote:
Dear Dave's Garden folks,

I will post plant's pic tomorrow (below is an example one to show how tree is). Here is my situation.

I have a 4 meter Ficus Amstel King on my balcony. It has 2.5 meter stalk (7 cms diameter), then the leaves and branches above. It has reached the ceiling of the balcony.

1) If I cut top parts, can I force the tree to grow branches downwards (at least some)?

2) How much of plant foliage and branches can you cut without killing the plant? In the pic below for example, how small can you make this tree?

Many thanks!

This message was edited Dec 15, 2018 1:27 PM