Thank you to everyone that took the time to respond. Please dont get me wrong, I absolutely love my job.... where else could you get paid to do what you love??? I also love seeing my regular customers, talking with them, swapping plants, stories(some ridiculously funny) and also extras from our veggie gardens. Every night when I come home cold and tired, and maybe sometimes irritated from cranky customers, I honestly always feel good about my day. some of my co-workers are in the same boat as me, they have to work, and really put their all into it, but get taken advantage of, you know?? Also, the owner of the store is amazing, the general manager is an a** that I would love to meet in a dark alley with a board with nails in it, he's so pompous, I'd love to just let him have it!!! Anywho...... life is life, .... I have tried to tell the higher ups with $$ signs in their views, that by excellent customer service and amazing products, they could take it to the bank, per se', but who knows..... Also, alot of customers dont realize that while we're at work helping them, our own families and gardens are being neglected.... something I can definately relate to!!! Albeit, its a job, and a job I love.... for the most part. Keep your eyes open for "melissa" in a garden center near you, and I guarantee you'll get 100% honest info and I'll do my best to help you enjoy your garden, after all, thats my job, right??? Completely O/T, but I will post some pictures of my gardens soon, my peonies are in full bloom as are my delphiniums, my pure red lilies and my gardenia trees(for North Bay!!!! Ontario) are just about ready to break wild..... Keep looking!!! I'll post soon!!! If anyone has any gardening questions or just wants to chit chat, please send me a ??? or send a mail to my private addy, msw12142001@yahoo.ca Thanks again everyone, makes those crappy days all worth it!!! Melissa

I read the whole thread from start to finish and realized why I wasn't following the thread too closely. Sweetcicily had given good advice & there was really no reason for me to add any additional comments - she covered it well, based on the information you gave. First, I really love trees, but I'm not all that worried about yours for the immediate future. It's quite healthy for a tree growing in CHI that only gets AM sun. Benjamina regularly loses some leaves through natural senescence, so loss of a few leaves, even under ideal conditions is normal. My areas of concern are: A) You haven't fertilized at all since you repotted. The small volume of soil you added, even though it did have some fertilizer in it, would not be enough to sustain a plant of that mass, so I would expect nutrient deficiencies, probably on multiple fronts. N,P,& K are all mobile in plant tissues so a deficiency of any of those would show up in older leaves. Mg and S are marginally mobile, so a deficiency of those would show up in older tissues when the plant is quiescent, and in all tissues when the plant is actively growing. Ca and almost all the micro-nutrients are immobile, so deficiencies show up in new growth. From this, you can see why I suspect a Mg deficiency, especially with your corroboration of the distorted new growth, prolly indicating a Ca/Mg shortage. B) Salt accumulation in soil (see SweetC's info above, too) is probably in play here, too. Excess salt inhibits both water and nutrient uptake, so it can manifest itself in a drought response and/or nutritional deficiencies. You really need to figure out your water issues & get that soil flushed thoroughly. After you flush the soil, fertilize immediately with 1/4 strength MG 12-4-8 liquid w/micro-nutrients. It's the best choice. Contact me off forum & I'll fix you up with a small vial of nutrients you can mix into the 12-4-8 you'll need & you'll have a complete fertilizer with all the nutrients your plant needs. I'll even send a little gypsum to help keep the Ca:Mg balance straightened out, and some chelated Fe (iron) formulated for high-pH conditions (your high pH is probably blocking Fe uptake, too). ;o) C) From all you've said about the condition of the roots, you're going have to bite the bullet & do a repot, complete with a root-pruning this summer. I'll help you through it when the time comes. If you don't, you can eventually expect branch die back, little or no branch extension, and slow to no growth. Basically, the tree will strangle itself, and "A plant that is not growing is dying". Dr. Alex Shigo - world renown for his tree research.size> Watergal also made very good points about the water from the refrigerator (Are you applying it cold? You shouldn't be; it will injure roots), the water softener (we still need to get that worked out, btw), dissimilar soils in the same container, and her repotting tips. Don't despair or throw your hands up in confusion. I know you're prolly on info overload, but the solutions are really quite simple in comparison to the physiology of what's going on with the plant. Al

FYI all of you nail polish remover users: nail polish remover is usually acetone. See Brickeye's list. It is highly flammable. So unplug and douse the pilot lights with it, too. The other thing to remember is that all of these highly volatile organic compounds are not good for you to breathe. They can be irritants, or worse. From Wikipedia: "Acetone is believed to exhibit only slight toxicity in normal use, and there is no strong evidence of chronic health effects if basic precautions are followed.[20] At very high vapor concentrations, acetone is irritating and, like many other solvents, may depress the central nervous system. It is also a severe irritant on contact with eyes, and a potential pulmonary aspiration risk." So pull your head out of the dryer for a breath of fresh air, every so often! I agree with Jeremy! Norten's use of a vacuum - even a shop vac, which I assume he used, though he did not specify - was very dangerous. I did a search on his name of his "method" to see if this was a prank that he had perpetuated elsewhere on the web. No hits. He is just dangerously incompetent, not truly evil.

Check the nearby rooms. Look for ANY sign of water. Our leak was under the kitchen sink- found it the next morning... thought it got the sink cabinet and kitchen floor (ripped it out ASAP). It actually ran into the bathroom on the adjoining wall, under the tub and into the computer/guest room. Never saw any sign of the bathroom damage (tile floor) and didn't catch the bedroom carpet until the next night. DH & DIL ripped out the wet carpet right then. I still figured we were ok- one small room of carpet, a sink base and small kitchen floor. Wrong. When I went to measure the kitchen floor (3 days later by now) the kickplate was swelling up and I knew it was worse than I thought. Ended up with a restoration company (Service Master in Ft Myers, FL who I would NEVER recommend, btw)- they had to cut out drywall, run 2 giant dehumidifiers and 10-12 fans for 4 days to avoid mold. The bill for the dryout was over $2000. It was like living in an extremely hot airplane engine. What did they use for your walls? Is it waterproof? How about the insulation? We have a concrete foundation, too, but the walls are what I'd be concerned with. And FWIW, if you do see any sign of water damage- call the insurance company and have THEM contact a restoration company. That way they're responsible for everything. (Lesson learned, Service Master broke my Miele d/w & ripped the sockets under the sink out of the wall. Insurance refused to cover it because it wasn't caused by the water & Service Master (the a$$h0le owner) offered me a whole $90 for the damage they caused- electrician was $225 & d/w service call will be a minimum of $150 + parts).