Ok, first get the pot out of the water... the roots will rot (trust me). Second, stop misting the soil. You'll get mold and who knows what. Dig your finger into it deeper than 1" and if it's dry there, water properly from above - enough so all the roots actually get a drink, but drain it in the sink - it may not have been watered properly in a while. If it's not dry though, don't water til it is - Scheffleras can get pretty dry between waterings and will react badly to being kept wet all the time. Thirdly, get it into more light for a lot of hours a day. And lastly, DO get a wide and high-sided tray of stones with water up to just below the stones. THEN put the pot on that for humidity - more effective than spraying but won't rot anything. Also keep the whole thing in a relatively warm but not drying atmosphere. Don't worry about the dead leaves - remove then if you want to, it doesn't matter much. And be patient... give it time to recover. Just remember once it's properly watered continue to do it that way, but allow a lot of the soil to dry out in between times. If you can repot, it would be best to do so adding lots of grit (perlite, small aquarium gravel) for fast drainage, which is really the key to growing healthy trees.

2,4-d is not a fungicide, it is an herbicide. If it worked against fungus, that would be news to the lawn community. Not sayin' it won't work, just saying it would be news. Is it an illusion or is this area slightly mounded up from the area to the left? If it is mounded up, then drainage would be better from that area allowing it to dry out more between watering/rainfall. That could easily cause a problem in one spot versus another. The obvious issue would be not watering deeply, once per week, throughout the summer. But then why would you have any grass if drought was the problem??? If you have not used any organic fertilizer in the past 3 years, I would suggest you do that to improve the health of your soil. Healthier soil can fight off disease better than sterile or deficient soil. The one I like for this year (due to cost) is alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow). You can get a 50-pound bag at your local feed store for around $12-$14. If this is a first time in 3 years, your first app should be 10 pounds per 1,000 square feet. I would follow that up in a month with a second app at 20 pounds per 1,000. 20 pounds is the normal rate, but if your soil is not already sort of healthy, it will take longer for the alfalfa to decompose and it can smell a little sour for awhile. If you have doubts that alfalfa is a fertilizer, here is a picture posted here at GardenWeb by mrmumbles in 2011. He had fertilized the spot with alfalfa in mid May and took the picture in mid June. Note the improved color, density, and growth. Sometimes a lawn with poor soil will crash under repeated applications of chemical fertilizers. The occasional use of organics seems to keep the crashing from happening. Quite often homeowners will try the alfalfa and stop synthetics altogether. There does not seem to be any problem with a continual organic regimen. I've been doing it since 2002. If you think the problem is a fungal disease, the other thing you can try, on top of the alfalfa, is to apply ordinary, ground corn meal at the same rate of 20 pounds per 1,000. Results on this seem to vary, but it has worked for me every year. If I did not use corn meal I would not have a lawn at all. In my yard it stops the progress of the disease immediately and allows the new grass to come up disease free. If you are reluctant to use fungicide, and I completely agree, then corn meal is the only alternative we think we know about. Like I said, results with corn meal are all over the map but it works for me. I would not try the corn meal until after the 10 pound app of alfalfa. Corn meal is also an organic fertilizer, so it will prolong the effect of the organics. If you normally winterize with a chemical fertilizer after the grass stops growing, you can still do that whether you go with a full organic routine or not. Lots of people who are otherwise all organic will do the final app of the year with a chemical fert like urea.

I'm so sorry, but, it doesn't look completely dead yet. Your potting mix looks very wet or is it just very black? Young lychee plant don't need the extreme moistness of larger trees does. Carefully pulled out the tree and look at the root ball/system. If they are still whitish and not dark brown. Then the lychee still has a fighting chance. All those leaves will eventually drop or you can pull them off now. It will be a slower process to regrow new leaves, but, if the root system is dark brown, then it is most likely dead. But, whitish roots, still have hope for recovering. Will be slower, but will recovered. I have some young plants like that too, all the leaves died and turned brown. But their root system is still alive, just took longer to recover, after such a stressful period of leaf drops. Hang on to the little guy, it will recover, eventually. Just don't give it water unless you notice the soil is getting on the dry side.

As far as too-dry roots, should I have just sprayed them more? Or should I have pruned less off the roots in the first place, and maybe kept some of the soil around them? They didn't have all that much mass, and I did wonder about that. My husband kept telling me, don't cut its roots! Even if you use a soil that allows you to use a much larger pot than you could use (effectively) when using a water-retentive medium, a ficus will usually colonize the soil to the degree the root/soil mass can be lifted from the pot intact - so it doesn't fall apart when you pull it from the pot. That's how I judge when a plant would benefit from a repot ..... but I'm using a high quality medium. I said that so I can say, if it's been more than a year in the same pot and the soil wasn't fully colonized by roots, there's something amiss. The plants might be reacting adversely to one or more of your soil's ingredients, or to how it's structured. In container media, that there is nothing phytotoxic (poison to plants) in the soil and how favorably (to the plant) the soil is structured are the most important considerations. It's not the soil's job to provide nutrition, that's your/our job. The soil's job is to provide a ratio of water to air that doesn't prove limiting to the plant, and it's better for the plant if you err on the side of more aeration than needed than more water than needed. The former is only limiting if you can't keep up with the plant's water needs. The later is a limitation any time you water appropriately - to beyond the point of saturation. This is a ficus repot of a F benjamina v "Too Little": After most of the soil has been removed: After all the root work was done. Note I kept only fine roots, the workhorses that do the lion's share of the heavy lifting: Repot completed - 90% of the top (branches and foliage) removed. It's pretty apparent I'm not too bashful about removing huge %s of roots, and the only trees I've ever tented were junipers of one species that I had grafted Shimpaku juniper (a variety of chinensis) branches to. I often tent hard to root cuttings, however. Even though conventional "wisdom" says you shouldn't prune the top of the plant to balance the volume of roots to shoots, those of us who collect trees in leaf from the wild or transplant/repot trees in leaf know it's foolish to think one size fits all. It's very often requisite that a significant fraction of the top be removed if the root system is weak or you judge it insufficient to support the top mass. After a few repots, you'll get better at making that judgment. The kitty litter contains *only* bentonite clay, and NOT clumping, NOT scented. Keeps its form when soaked, frozen, and thawed. OK, good. Was there a lot of dust in it? Fine bentonite forms a slippery, slimey paste that expands when it gets wet. I use it in Kokedama and in the dams that must be built to hold soil on top of tree plantings on flat stone slabs Al, I would feel very good about pruning. I don't see buds, but the tree-lets were in good shape and putting out new leaves before...before I tried to help them. Be patient. You can always take it off (branches) - harder to put it back on. Questions: --Are you talking about topping them above a branch? Just saying that's something you COULD do if you like - not a suggestion, just an observation. I do it all the time on very large plants. Another "story". Imagine how tall this tree was when I chopped it back. Does it look like a bonsai? No? Much better - right? No? this spring after repotting into training pot: Taken last Fri as it comes into leaf: Won't that get me two shoots/trunks at each cut, or a funny joint? No. The top branch becomes the new leader and the branch below it gets restrained. You'll prune it so it's growing horizontally. Changing a branch's position from vertical to horizontal also significantly changes the amount of energy that flows into that branch. The tree will always pay more attention to the branches growing vertically. Would I choose one branch, wire it up straighter, and remove the other? See what I just offered. Will that joint be strong enough? ;-) This is a tree in a put, you're not going to hang a tire swing off the branches or a chainfall so you can use it to hoist cars. It'll be fine. --Cut back a third in height? More? Whatever you like, but wait until the tree recovers. For now, just prune the branches. I can help guide you in that process. --If I take off the slender little twigs and actual branches that now go the wrong direction, will the trunk put out completely new growth from old wood? Yes. There are already dormant buds immediately distal to the point where every leaf that was ever on the tree was attached ...... and if that's not enough, the tree will form adventitious buds at random if it's healthy and really likes it's growing conditions. It seems like it might.... You're right. --Would it be better to repot it (them) into a different soil or is it too late? I don't have a good sense about what kind of job your soil will do. I'm not at all a fan of coir. Every experiment I ever did with it ended up with the plants in coir or CHCs faring nowhere as well as plants in pine bark and/or peat. Even in view of the fact I was using appropriate work-arounds for several of coir's shortcomings. This the soil mix I made today, which I could use tomorrow to repot. I was attempting to come *closer* to 5-1-1 but with some Turface added: There was no image. It would be great if you could come up with something that resembles one of these, or even a combination: [5 parts?] 3 cf Gro-well Soil Conditioner (composted forest product, sure looks like the composted pine fines photos to me...at least closer than coir???) [1 part?] 4 gallons Perlite [1/2 part?] 2 gallons of coir (peat moss substitute? ...feels similar to peat moss in texture...and that isn't very large proportion of it...) [1/2 part?] 2 gallons of MiracleGro Potting Mix (peat moss substitute) 2 C Osmocote 5 small handfuls of gypsum (~1/2 C?) [2 parts?] ~1 cf Turface MVP If you think you have a medium that drains reasonably well and will be adequately aerated if we get rid of the perched water, using ballast can make a very large difference by nearly eliminating all saturated soil with as very simple trick of science. This explains how it works. Al