If you buy one, you must keep it in a closed terrarium until it gets established. I lost the first one I bought by putting it in this same terrarium, but did not cover it. Second one went in the same place, but with a cover of Saran Wrap. As soon as new growth started to show, I started peeling back the cover a little each week. It will grow nicely under office lighting uncovered, but will grow SUPER FAST if you keep it covered and give it a little full sun each day. It is absolutely the cutest tiny ivy ever!

HI there, I bought a small (5") GI ficus in august it was flush w/ leaves. I got it home & pruned 1/3 of the roots & put it in a 6x13/4 bonsai pot. it was fine for a few weeks then dropped all but 2 or 3 leaves at the end of each branch. I repotted it back into a training pot & now it has tons of new growth & is 7" tall. they're pretty hardy little guys so give yours some time. H.

I missed the 4th picture from the top, which shows the leaf arrangement to be 'opposite' (leaves arranged in pairs on opposite sides of the branch). Ficus leaves are alternate (arranged singly along the stem in alternating locations). So whatever it is, it's not a Ficus. Some good Samaritan who's better at IDs than I, will come along and tell you what it is. Your soil should be something you can water to beyond the saturation point (so you're flushing accumulating salts from the soil) without the need to worry the soil will stay soggy so long it affects root health or function. Your soil choice is probably going to have more impact on how easy/ difficult it will be to keep your new pals healthy. I'm not sure how much effort you want to put into learning about the importance of soil choice and it's impact on plant vitality; if you're interested this link covers it, and probably represents the largest step forward a container gardener can take at any one time. The goal for fertilizing containerized plants can easily be described. Ideally, we would work toward ensuring that all the nutrients plants normally secure from the soil are in the soil solution at all times, in the ratio at which the plant actually uses the nutrients, and at a concentration high enough to ensure no deficiencies yet low enough to ensure the plant isn't impeded in its ability to take up water and the nutrients dissolved in water. This goal is easily achievable using one water soluble synthetic fertilizer. You CAN use organic forms of nutrition, like fish/seaweed emulsions or various types of meal, but that makes it much more difficult to achieve the goal. I use Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 because it has ALL the essential nutrients in the ratio at which plants actually use the nutrients, and it gets most of its N from nitrate sources, which helps to allow plants in low light conditions to remain compact and helps keep them from getting leggy. Al

Ficus are pretty and hummingbirds like to nest in them. As long as they aren't sheared into lopsided cubes or cylinders by a mow and go crew I think they always look nice. They can make an indoor office space or waiting room peaceful. There was one in a hospital where my aunt would go for chemotherapy and we always sat next to it while we waited for the nurse. So many people are receiving some comfort from that ficus every day.