FINALLY Nic! I was waiting for you to stop being so nice and speak up to Mr. Bigshot over here with his PhD in bonsai growing. He's only on here to belittle others. ALL the posts I've read from him are to tell you what you're doing WRONG....in a demeaning way. Never to just chat or write a friendly comment. Oh, wait...he does occasionally post to show off his bonsai jades, which would "end up in the compost pile" if they were mine (sound familiar??)....and by the way, I wasn't asking your opinion in that post....I could care less what your aesthetic preference is. Don't worry, you're the bonsai master and all the beginner members on here have NO place here. How dare they ask questions??? And then they don't get YOUR point? Oh my, the audacity. You're doing all the beginners a favor with your negative remarks...I'm sure that's why they posted in the first place, to be made to feel small. P.S. putting a smiley face after a snide comment doesn't make it any less snide. Gabi Here is a link that might be useful: Thread I referred to (

Pottery intended for food typically uses glazes without lead or other contaminants. I have read that inexpensive pots (these were!) are fired at low temperatures which require special low temperature glaze which may contain lead or other heavy metals. There was a scare a few years ago about cookware from outside the USA using lead glaze. I don't know what's in the Malaysian glaze but since the pots are for plants there's unlikely any control. The pot interiors are permeable (I tested with a few drops of water which soaked in) so I am concerned if water can reach the exterior glaze from inside that there may be long-term transfer of lead or cadmium (which I don't know is _not_ there) or whatever to the inside. Plastic liner pots is a good idea but it's hard to find ones to fit the containers without dropping in size so much I am losing 1/4-1/3 the volume of the container. I'll hunt around since you are right, it does make them much lighter to move if it can be done as two pieces, but this isn't exactly the best time of year to go hunting for pots in Minnesota! I bought water-based acrylic finish and painted on 2 layers. I did this to all the pots so they are generally sealed against water soaking into the pottery (I could end up storing empty pots outside in freezing temperatures). For one of the fruit trees I also lined the pot with a piece of old shower curtain so there's now 3 layers between the plant and the pot. At least the plant is happy now and if I can find a plastic liner pot that fits I can transfer it later.

You were given good advice by both people who replied so far. It is all about the soil. I would think an Ace Hardware would carry a reliable line of planting soils. The reason that a cactus mix soil was suggested is that it is fast draining and you can lighten it up even more by buying a bag of perlite and adding that in also. I have come to realize that most potting soils really are too heavy and do hold too much water for too long. Of course then the plant goes into root rot and dies. I would bet that more houseplants die due to overwatering than to underwatering. Remember also after winter to fertilize regularly but use about half of whatever fertilizer that you use. That is another area that is commonly overdone. The fertilizer, if put on too heavily will burn your roots and again another dead plant. You can improve your soil each year by adding in some compost that will renew the soil. All houseplants need this. When I have done any cutting back on my ficus, it never showed any signs of decline. The tree really didn't react at all except that it continued to put out branches and leaves. If you need to do a bit of shaping up, I wouldn't be overly concerned about doing it. I would suggest buying a book on houseplants or looking through several books to get the idea of what an ideal ficus should look like. Then you can trim your trees appropriately. Do some heavy duty searching on line for info on the plant also, then you will know exactly what it's needs are. Mine sits in front of a southwest facing window so it gets lots of sun. I don't have any window coverings or blinds on that window either. My ficus seems to love it. In fact my whole house has huge windows that have virtually no coverings and my houseplants absolutely thrive. I don't believe most people who keep houseplants truly understand what low, medium, or sunny light is in their homes. I feel that most people don't have enough light to support many houseplants. A really handy tool to have is a moisture sensor, light sensor, ph sensor all in one. I'm sure Ace would have one and they are not expensive. With this device you will know if your light is adequate for your ficus, if the soil is dry or overly damp, and of course the ph level which should be between 6-7 for most plants. Choosing the proper fertilizer is important because it determines if your soil stays neutral, or acidic, whether it promotes green growth or flower growth. This is why I suggest people pick up a SIMPLE book on houseplants or outside gardening. You should take a look in your phonebook under nurseries, or garden to see if another source exists other than what you have mentioned. Feed stores surprise me with the wide variety of goods they carry. Perhaps one by you will have a wide variety of goods also. It isn't a sin to shop at WalMart for gardening and houseplant needs but with some knowledge from your houseplant book you will know precisely what you are looking for. I think the trick in the garden dept. is to stick to big brand names and not the WalMart brand or an off brand. This is one area that generics just don't work very well. So get yourself some knowledge from a book, the internet, or find some people in the area who have success with their houseplants and you will have all you need to grow plants well.

Pete, I hope you don't mind a long post, but I want to share my little successes story in case it inspires you to take a few steps. My benjamina is still in standard potting soil (until i repot next summer), and is badly rootbound and had lost all of those proximal leaves Al talked about. It had way too little light for a few years, was watered with hard water, rarely even tried to put out new leaves, and when it did they usually dried up before they grew. It was in a lot worse shape than yours before I decided to do some research about how to help it out. After after using info from a lot of Al's/tapla's posts for a month, my poor benjamina has gone from a depressing waif to a bit of a maniac. Each branch and side branch has at least three new full sized leaves as well as two or three additional leaves that are just coming out. The new growth extends at least a few inches back from the ends of their branches, and even better, several new sets of leaves have appeared in the middle of the plant on completely bare branches and dead looking twigs. The silly thing is putting out enough growth that the soil is dry three or four days after watering, instead of the two+ weeks it did before. Here's what I did, which took almost no money and very little time: I flushed it thoroughly with lukewarm filtered tap water, ending with a few rounds of R/O water from a grocery store machine, drained thoroughly using the tilt method, gave it a diluted dose of MG general purpose fertilizer, and drained it again. Then I moved it right in front of a window and added 12 hours of light from bright white and daylight bulbs in movable lamps. From then on I've used sharpened dowels to tell when the soil at the bottom feels completely dry before watering, water with diluted fertilizer (but see below) until about a quarter of what I gave it had drained out, and do the tilt thing to get as much water out as possible. AL/tapla, since we're talking about struggling rootbound benjaminas, I have a question: I bought Foliage Pro on Amazon, and yesterday I was about to fertigate the larger benjamina and schefflera, both of which are badly rootbound, had lost their proximal leaves, and before last month hadn't had fertilizer in a loooong time, when I noticed this on the FP bottle: "To Correct Mineral Deficiencies: For rootbound or deficient plants, use 1 tsp. per gallon of water for 2 or 3 waterings." I thought this described these two plants perfectly, so I went ahead and gave them the stronger solution of FP. Was that the right thing to do? Should I follow the instructions and use the same concentration for the next few waterings? Lenore