Thanks for the replies. Dan ... the dirt was indeed placed directly on the native soil, although calling it "native" might be misleading because it was backfilled against the front porch when the house was built 3.5 yrs ago. The width of the bed is about 6-7', and the distance from the bed surface to the previous surface is probably a couple of feet under the tree. The bed is held in place by a retaining wall about 3' high on one side and the front porch on the other side. I'll try to snap a photo and post it. Ken ... you may be right about the sprinkler, but I didn't want to trust my diligence in watering it so I had dedicated heads put on all of the plantings in the primary landscaping beds ... the head seems to soak the area pretty well, but my wife and I were planning to investigate as you suggested to see if we needed to do something different ... The heads are small adjustable units that spray a continuous wedge-shaped curtain of water ... we have this head placed about 18" from the trunk so that it covers a fairly wide swath around the base of the tree. In the hot season, I run it twice (with a break to allow the water to soak in) every other day ... other times I back it off to every third or every fourth day. The tree is about 30" tall, with a canopy about twice that in one direction and about 3' in the other (it's growing mostly in one direction, which is why we selected it for this area). The trunk is perhaps 2-3" dia, so it's a fairly solid little guy. Thanks again for the feedback ... I still have so much to learn!

Hi casnavy, Welcome to Garden Web. I'd suggest you try asking at the link below. If they can't help, you might also try The Fruit and Orchards Forum. Sue Here is a link that might be useful: Trees Forum

Before we get to the problem you think you have, let me go to the real issues :-) Or you can ignore what I say and skip to the bottom two lines for thoughts on your leaf issue. Are you afraid to trim the low branches for some reason? Get those low branches off the tree, tie it to a stick for support, ALL the way up, not 12" from the ground only, lose the fruit and train it in a straight upward growth habit. I let my three grow to about 5 feet then snipped the top to force branching. Once it branches, let the branches get long say 3-4' tip prune them to force more branching cutting off branches that grow downward. This way you will be able to move around the tree and pick fruit easily as it matures. Carambola start life VERY scraggly and you need to help it get strong. In 4-5 years with help from you it will be strong and give you more fruit than you and your neighbors can eat. If you want fruit today, go to Publix :-) If trained properly you can let it keep fruit when it's strong enough to not break or deform under the weight of the fruit. That said, carambola are VERY disease resistant in so. Fla. and with your tree so low it's hard to tell if it's cat spray, yard spray, direct fertilizer burn or maybe something else spraying on it from say a neighbor, splashing from your roof or from your lawn mower debris landing on it. To me it looks like mineral oil spray burn. Have you sprayed it? Ever? The only foliar spray you may need is to cure chlorosis which is not life threatening to the tree, but foliar nutrients will not burn it. Look up chlorosis your tree does not have it. Trimming and thinning branches is a lifelong job. They will have LOTS of dead branches that need to be trimmed OFTEN so you can get up in it to harvest fruit by hand without poking yourself in the eyes with dead branches. Carambola fruits don't do well with fruit pickers that I have tried. Finally, the worst things that can happen to Carambola are drying out, chlorosis, a hard scale (seemingly harmless to the tree) that gets on the branches. Frankly they're hard to kill, I know I had a devil of a time killing a Bell two years ago rather than bringing in a stumper. About your custard apples, Are those new flushes? Anonnas get white fly (look under the leaves for them) and "maybe" scale but for the most part are also pretty disease resistant. Bottom line is, I suspect something airborne is causing those spots on both trees. OR it "could" be bacterial leaf spot. See: https://www.planetnatural.com/pest-problem-solver/plant-disease/bacterial-leaf-spot/

Generally speaking - and I'm no expert here, just have a few houseplants and have been learning a lot from this forum - some plants such as the softer leaves ones will show their displeasure and happiness quite quickly by wilting or perking up quite quickly. But I think some of the thicker leaved firmer plants can look ok for some time even when declining (more water reserves, stronger leaf structure,etc), for example sansevieria (snake plants), so maybe rubber plants are like this too. What I'm trying to say is it may have been going downhill for longer than the two weeks of obvious symptoms. Plus it's possible really high numbers of fungus gnat larvae could have munched on the really fine feeder roots. Although I thought the roots looked good overall. I don't know about the white bugs, you'd need to be sure what they were to know if they damaged it. And the (necessary) repotting was another stress on the plant. Many factors to consider, playing plant detective. It may well be the additive effect of several things. You've had lots of good advice from the experienced people above, on light and soils etc. Personally I would now put it in a bright warm draft-free spot inside, and wait. Don't let the roots dry right out while they're recovering but don't let the soil stay damp either. To achieve this, try using a spray bottle of water on a gentle jet to target where the pruned rootball is, and at the times when you do water more thoroughly leave the pot tilted at 45 degrees (even 30 degrees will help) for 15-20 minutes afterwards and then sit it on towels or paper pushed up against the drain holes for a couple hours. This isn't to remove all the water you just put in, it is to reduce the saturated layer that occurs at the bottom, the "perched water table" (yes, it has a name) Dont fertilise until you see new leaves growing and don't sunburn it by putting it in direct sunshine outside if it's not used to it. Good luck!