F. benjamina is an upright plant with pendulous/weeping branching, which is why its common name is 'weeping fig'. If it is laying over in the pot, it could be one of 4 things. A) It was somehow allowed to establish in the container while it was leaning. B) There has not been enough light for the tree to grow with enough vitality to lay down cells in the cambium as it was extending (not enough light to grow fatter as it was reaching for more light), which could cause the tree to 'flop over' due to a thin, weak trunk. C) There is a root problem - roots dying/rotting so the tree is poorly anchored in the soil. 4) Mechanical damage or purposeful removal of the main leader, forcing a secondary scaffold branch to attempt to assume the role of new leader. In any of these cases, you should NOT "... add soil around the base and firm it up." I wouldn't take the time to mention this if it did not carry with it the potential to damage or kill the tree. The root epidermis and cortex is similar to bark and cambium, except the epidermis/cortex is adapted to conditions underground. Bark is not. Adding soil that covers the basal flare (where the tree fattens as roots start appearing and disappear into the soil) can cause bark to rot, exposing the cambium & destroying the vascular connection to the canopy. It also invites any one of a number of cankers and sets the stage for invasion of Pythium (damping off) and Phytophthora (crown rot) diseases. Assume none of these things are good. ;o) Al

@JMJ 4Life Really sorry to learn about your tree. I assume some part of the root mass is fused, so the soil/root mass remains intact like so: If the answer is yes, unpot the plant and set the root/soil mass on a stack of newspapers, rags, old towels, dry sponges - something that will PULL excess water from the soil. Allow it to rest on the wicking material for an hour or two before returning it to the pot it fits. Use a wooden "tell" to "tell" you when it's time to water, because with no water loss from foliage, the plant will require very little water. Using a 'tell' Over-watering saps vitality and is one of the most common plant assassins, so learning to avoid it is worth the small effort. Plants make and store their own energy source – photosynthate - (sugar/glucose). Functioning roots need energy to drive their metabolic processes, and in order to get it, they use oxygen to burn (oxidize) their food. From this, we can see that terrestrial plants need plenty of air (oxygen) in the soil to drive root function. Many off-the-shelf soils hold too much water and not enough air to support the kind of root health most growers would like to see; and, a healthy root system is a prerequisite to a healthy plant. Watering in small sips in order to avoid over-watering leads to a residual build-up of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil from tapwater and fertilizer solutions - which limits a plant's ability to absorb water – so watering in sips simply moves us to the other horn of a dilemma and creates another problem that requires resolution. Better, would be to simply adopt a soil that drains well enough to allow watering to beyond the saturation point, so we're flushing the soil of accumulating dissolved solids whenever we water; this, w/o the plant being forced to pay a tax in the form of reduced vitality, due to prolong periods of soil saturation. Sometimes, though, that's not a course we can immediately steer, which makes controlling how often we water a very important factor. In many cases, we can judge whether or not a planting needs watering by hefting the pot. This is especially true if the pot is made from light material, like plastic, but doesn't work (as) well when the pot is made from heavier material, like clay, or when the size/weight of the pot precludes grabbing it with one hand to judge its weight and gauge the need for water. Fingers stuck an inch or two into the soil work ok for shallow pots, but not for deep pots. Deep pots might have 3 or more inches of soil that feels totally dry, while the lower several inches of the soil is 100% saturated. Obviously, the lack of oxygen in the root zone situation can wreak havoc with root health and cause the loss of a very notable measure of your plant's potential. Inexpensive watering meters don't even measure moisture levels, they measure electrical conductivity. Clean the tip and insert it into a cup of distilled water and witness the fact it reads 'DRY'. One of the most reliable methods of checking a planting's need for water is using a 'tell' (more reliable than a 'moisture meter'. You can use a bamboo skewer in a pinch, but a wooden dowel rod of about 5/16” (75-85mm) works better. They usually come 48” (120cm) long and can usually be cut in half or in several pieces, depending on how deep your pots are. Sharpen both ends of each tell in a pencil sharpener and slightly blunt the tip so it's about the diameter of the head on a straight pin. Push the wooden tell deep into the soil. Don't worry, it won't harm the root system. If the plant is quite root-bound, you might need to try several places until you find one where you can push it all the way to the pot's bottom. Leave it a few seconds, then withdraw it and inspect the tip for moisture. For most plantings, withhold water until the tell's tip comes out nearly dry. If you see signs of wilting, adjust the interval between waterings so drought stress isn't a recurring issue. Al

Thanks Al! I will give you a bit of background/description now, and work on getting pics in the next day or two. I am slowly working on trying to find an ID for an exceptional variegated tree-size (the mother plant is about 8 feet) benjamina, from which I have a rooted cutting. I've looked at lots and lots of variegated figs whenever I get the chance, and this is the prettiest I have ever seen. I suspect it may be the cultivar 'Starlite', but I have never seen 'Starlite' in person. This tree is at a local nursery greenhouse. Unfortunately, the owner is not very careful with cultivar names. He tells me that he got the plant many years ago from another nursery owner, and that the plant came to him with no tag. This may or may not be true, but in any case the plant is quite a few years old and has been without a name for a good long time. The exceptional things about this tree, to me, are that it is exceptionally heavily variegated -- less green than any other I've personally seen -- and also that it is quite sturdy and healthy. I'm a stickler for names myself, so now that I have finally scored a baby off of it (I've been drooling for years) I'd really like to ID it. BUT I don't know what characteristics I should specifically look for in order to have the best chance at an ID. If you can give me any info about exactly what I should look for and photograph, I'll get pics and post em in the next few days. Thanks for any pointers!

OMG - having just noticed this condition, I.e. observation, while cleaning and trimming my 12’ ficus, that was also dropping leaves, I have to say, 1) I’m glad I didn’t try to do anything about it, other than knocking off the waxy globs, before I consulted the “internet” meaning, you guys ... 2) my husband and I are laughing our heads off reading this thread - hysterical debate - thanks for the laugh ... 3) sorry Ficus, no way you’ll be pollinating anything anytime soon! ... on a more instructive note, I’ll just say that my ficus has always been very hardy and not very fussy. However, I had moved it to a less sunny spot to accommodate our Christmas Tree. It didn’t seem to care for that location, so it had started dropping some leaves, causing me to search for extraneous clues, and finding the white globs ... I am happy yo report it is now back in its original sunny spot, has been trimmed and had leaves spritzed and cleaned. I’m sure will be a happy camper once again, very soon! Fondest regards to everyone and their ficus trees!