MrsG, Well sub-tropical anyway:) If I was tropical I would have mangoes lol. Here is a front shot of the peaches and yes very happy with how they have grown. For 17 months they have really roared. The plums have not done as well..now I find out I guess I was supposed to prune them as well and I have not.

My dilemma was whether to put the plant back in the smaller pot, but Al was right when he said that it would actually do better in the letter pot with ballast. I don't know how much you've read about water movement and PWTs (perched water tables), but what the ballast does is keep the root zone above the PWT. Say you have a three inch perched water table at the bottom of a pot of water retentive soil that stays saturated long after watering. When you add three inches of ballast to the bottom of the pot, the PWT is now limited to the soil columns that extend from the main soil mass to the bottom. The plants roots can now safely colonize the upper part of the pot without ever being exposed to long periods underwater. But if you put the plant in the smaller pot, the PWT would still be three inches high, taking up more of the pot, so that the roots will have much less space to grow without periodic die-off from suffocation. As for which soil to use, you never want to have different soils in different areas of the pot, because one area will absorb more water faster than the other, leaving dry uninhabitable areas that limit the growing area. Because the ballast will keep the roots above the PWT, using water retentive soil is much less of a worry, so use what you've been using. If you read my thread you'll see that my schefflera had almost no root system at all when I added the ballast. I didn't get to repot this summer, and when I pull the plant out of the pot the root system looks really, really nice. I can't think of a reason to water sparingly after adding ballast. I'd water normally, carefully monitor the moisture, and water thoroughly as soon as the dowel tells you it's dry. 5:1:1 makes it even more important to water regularly, because it drains well and dries within a few days add opposed to the weeks you've been experiencing. Water slowly, moving the stream of water back and forth over the entire surface of the soil, leave out for a while, then repeat because 5:1:1 doesn't wick water around, so all the particles need to come into contact with water to moisten it evenly.

The browned leaf edges do look like overwatering. Were they there when you bought it? If so, all you have to do is to continue to monitor soil moisture like you did today, and hold off on watering until the dowel is dry. Do be sure to water slowly and thoroughly when you do water. For the rootbound plants I still have in their old soil, I water once until water begins to drain from the pot, making sure to go slowly and wet the whole surface of the soil evenly. Then I come back with my fertilizer solution and water again about 15 minutes later. If the pot was very dry I usually find that the pot takes longer to drain the second time, probably because peat that had become hydrophobic was allowed to slowly moisten a little so it could absorb water again. My pots have holds around the perimeter of the bottom, so tilting after watering works great even without a wick. When I found these forums last September I was ready to repot all my plants, which were weak and rootbound in very old soil. Fortunately I was persuaded to proceed more cautiously and to improve their growing conditions instead, the idea being that it's better to wait until the solstice to repot unless a plant is, as Al says, circling the drain (and I did repot the one schefflera that was doing just that in 5:1:1, with good results). I flushed them thoroughly with room temperature R/O water; bought some 100 watt, 5000k (bright white) LEDs and CFLs, put them in cheap clamp-on fixtures, and mounted them on a shelf above the plants on a timer so they'd get some light; for rid of a spider mite infestation; started fertilizing with a weak solution of Foliage Pro every time I watered; and diligently monitored soil moisture and watered properly when needed. All of my plants responded by perking up, and after a few months they'd gained enough energy and their root systems had recovered enough that they started putting out new growth. I don't have FLFs, but my ficus benjaminas did the best (I listed a few before and after photos in Dave's recent "Then and Now" thread), and they were much improved by the time the weather allowed me to put them outside. Here's where things went sideways, because some nagging health issues prevented me from actually reporting this season. I was really upset when I realized it just was not going to happen, but frankly none of my plants are in better shape than they've ever been, and I've really fallen back in love with the ficuses, which love their half-day of bright high altitudes sunlight so much that they've filled every branch with shiny healthy leaves. I'm sure they'd be even happier with pruned roots in gritty mix (I'll use a modified ratio to compensate for the desert conditions), but I've gotten good enough at compensating for it that they'll keep looking good for another winter, and now that I already have my ingredients and a lot of prepared mix I'll be able to jump into it next June whenever I have a little energy to spare. Al says that if you have two plants in the same condition, repot one in the fall, and repot the other one on Father's Day 2018, the second one will have more growth next fall than the one you repotted now. Some folks will say just go ahead and repot anytime, but your plant looks great despite having a couple of slightly damaged leaves, and they'll respond much better to repotting if you care for them properly and allow them to accumulate the energy they'll need to get through it smoothly. BTW, Cassandra's description of repotting is spot on if you're not going to prune roots. If I had your plant I'd wait until the plant's energy production was at its highest to make sure it will bounce back with some vigor, but Cassandra's method sounds like it would work great. Lenore

If these symptoms are manifest in only one or two leaves, I'd feel fairly confident that you're looking at mechanical injury. Waxing anthropomorphic for just a moment - mechanical injury would be the rough equivalent of bruising in a human. What look like scabs along the midrib appear to be callus tissue that forms after wounding. It looks like the leaf was accidentally scraped across an object or an object across the leaf to create the wounds. If it only occurs in one or two spots, keep an eye on it, but don't obsess over it. Without the support of the midrib and subordinate venation, the leaf of a Ficus lyrata would be about as strong as 20 lb bond typing paper. So they play a part similar to the metal ribs that support an opened umbrella - they add strength that helps leaves keep their shape. When subjected to deflection (bending) the leaf isn't able to tolerate, the midrib and/or veins can crack - like a piece of celery, e.g.. My guess is that's what happened to cause the other injury in your 2nd & 3rd images. It's really difficult to diagnose something from a distance, especially w/o seeing an image that better helps to assess your plant's o/a level of vitality. I should probably say that I reserve the right to change my mind re what's going on if an image showing the entire were to reveal anything that can't be seen in the tight shots. If you have interest, you might gain from looking at something I wrote about Growing Ficus in Pots. It was originally written when Ficus benjamina, the weeping fig, was garnering the lions share of the attention; but the cultural preferences of lyrata are so like benjamina that I could simply change the title and no one would ever notice. On the off chance that you find what you find at the link to be of value, I've written a more in depth piece about growing trees in pots that I think you'll find very helpful if you think that by becoming a more proficient nurturer, you increase the personal rewards you get from your growing experience. Let me know .... Al