The larger holes/damage in the small leaf you're holding look like mechanical injury - what would be akin to a bruise to a human. The spots on the underside of the leaf are oedema. I've written about that & I'll leave something about it at the end of my post. Usually the driving cause behind its occurrence is over-watering, but there are several cultural contributes that can also cause or exacerbate the malady. Using a "tell" to tell you when it's time to water will help you determine what moisture conditions are deeper in the pot. I'll also leave something about that, below. If you have interest, there are some other things that can help alleviate the impact of excess water, which causes a dearth of air in the soil, which causes limited root function and poor root health. Just ask if you have interest. FWIW, I'd guess that over-watering is directly or indirectly responsible for the overwhelming % of requests for help on all fora with strong connections to container growing. Oedema Oedema is a physiological disorder that can affect all plants. It occurs when the plant takes up more water than it can rid itself of via the process of transpiration. The word itself means 'swelling', which is usually the first symptom, and comes in the form of pale blisters or water-filled bumps on foliage. Under a variety of circumstances/cultural conditions, a plant's internal water pressure (turgidity) can become so high that some leaf cells rupture and leak their contents into inter-cellular spaces in leaf tissue, creating wet or weepy areas. Symptoms vary by plant, but as the malady progresses, areas of the leaf turn yellow, brown, brown with reddish overtones or even black, with older damage appearing as corky/ scaly/ ridged patches, or wart/gall-like bumpy growth. Symptoms are seen more frequently in plants that are fleshy, are usually more pronounced on the underside of leaves, and older/lower leaves are more likely to be affected than younger/upper leaves. Oedema is most common in houseplants during the winter/early spring months, is driven primarily by excessive water retention in the soil, and can be intensified via several additional cultural influences. Cool temperatures, high humidity levels, low light conditions, or partial defoliation can individually or collectively act to intensify the problem, as can anything else that slows transpiration. Nutritional deficiencies of Ca and Mg are also known contributors to the malady. Some things that can help you prevent oedema: * Increase light levels and temperature * Monitor water needs carefully – avoid over-watering. I'd heartily recommend a soil with drainage so sharp (fast) that when you to water to beyond the saturation point you needn't worry about prolonged periods of soil saturation wrecking root health/function. Your soil choice should be a key that unlocks the solutions to many potential problems. * Avoid misting or getting water on foliage. It slows transpiration and increases turgidity. * Water as soon as you get up in the AM. When stomata close in preparation for the dark cycle, turgidity builds. If you water early in the day, it gives the plant an opportunity to remove (for its own needs) some of the excess water in the soil. * Put a fan in the room or otherwise increase air flow/circulation. Avoid over-crowding your plants. 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 air (oxygen) in the soil to drive root function. Many off-the-shelf soils hold too much water and not enough air to support good root health, which is a prerequisite to a healthy plant. Watering in small sips leads to a build-up of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil, which limits a plant's ability to absorb water – so watering in sips simply moves us to the other horn of a dilemma. It 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'. You can use a bamboo skewer in a pinch, but a wooden dowel rod of about 5/16” (75-85mm) would work better. They usually come 48” (120cm) long and can usually be cut in half and serve as a pair. Sharpen all 4 ends 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 comes out dry or nearly so. If you see signs of wilting, adjust the interval between waterings so drought stress isn't a recurring issue. Al

Hi, Gina - thank you for the kind words. I now have it in a south facing window, that is mostly covered by a light filtering shade, 4 feet from a west facing window in a fairly bright room, and next to a humidifier. So it's sort of between a S and W window? I wondered if I did a full repot and root trim if I could possibly put it in a slightly smaller pot? I plan to use a mixture of 1:1:1 potting soil, perlite, and repti-bark, and possible put some empty bottles in the bottom as ballast. Yes, you'll be able to put it in a smaller pot after the root reduction, but do make sure you don't cut yourself short insofar as space for roots to run, given you'll be adding ballast. I also hoped to turn it into a standard or “mother/daughter”. It has 6 stems that all seem to be from the same plant and I wonder what the best way to convert it would be? A mother/daughter arrangement would look like the larger tree hovers protectively over the daughter tree. When you select the two trees, be sure the larger doesn't dirsctly overhang the smaller and shade it out. The two should be offset a bit. This can usually be accomplished best by allowing the two trunk lines to be directly above each other for a distance before the daughter's trunk turns toward you. This arrangement has a front and a back for viewing purposes, but it should be rotated regularly so all sides get their share of light. Remove the surplus stems.branches unnecessary to the composition by pruning them back to the trunk. Start them as cuttings if you like. I read about removing stems to accomplish this but also about leaving stems, because those leaves have value to the plant, while you focus on strengthening one stem or binding a few together? Honestly, I just read so much information at once in the past couple days that I am a little overwhelmed :) Not pertinent at this point - save that for later. I would like to give it the correct soil and conditions for it to thrive. I think you can expect good results with what you proposed above, and the ballast will definitely work in your favor. Is it too late for a repot and root pruning in zone 7b? If there was no pressure to get the plant out of the pot/soil it's in now, I'd probably wait. If you think the combination has potential to dump a serious problem before next spring, go ahead and repot. It would be best if, after the repot, the plant could be sited outdoors in dappled or open shade and out of wind while it recovers. You have a longer growing season than I do and I set Aug 1 as my last repot date for Ficus ..... but all my trees are outdoors, which makes a very significant difference. Start fertilizing when you're seeing new growth. Make sure you keep the roots WET for the entire duration of the repotting session. Have everything ready to go before you start. Add a wick to the pot too, if you like. Questions? Al

Questions: - To fertilize, my understanding is that I would first flush the plant with regular water, allowing it to drain. Then I would give it the fertilizer solution. At this point, would I be giving it enough liquid to saturate the volume of the container? For example, since it's in a 2 gallon pot, would I give it 2 gallons of fertilizer solution? Once you have your plants in a soil you can flush w/o the soil punishing your plants for the flush part, you should flush it thoroughly before instituting your new fertilizer program - sort of like hitting the fertilizer reset button. If you decide to fertilize right after you flush, you should use a full recommended dose the first time you fertilize; this, because the water in the soil will serve to further dilute your solution. You only need to apply enough solution so it's running freely from the drain. I usually don't fertilize like that. I would flush the pot, then wait until almost time to water - then fertilize. I've found that the recommended dose is actually very low, and plants that are not drought stressed are unlikely to show symptoms of fertilizer burn unless the plant is dry and the dose heavy. When I do the flush - wait - fertilize routine, I fertilize like I water. Cover the entire top of the soil with fertilizer solution and stop pouring at about the time the solution starts dripping from the drain. In summer, I'll water - water - water - fertilize - repeat - or hold very close to that routine - not all plants get watered with the same frequency. In winter, I fertilize every time I water with 1/4 tsp of 9-3-6 in a gallon of R/O water applied until the planting is freely draining. This rather consistently allows 15-25% of the solution applied to exit the drain. The regular flushing prevents the nutrient ratio in the soil solution from becoming too high or badly skewed. - With my current situation, since the plant is requiring such frequent watering, did you mean that flushing the soil regularly makes fertilization easy because it would lessen the likelihood of overfertilization/fertilizer burn? The ability to flush the soil w/o penalties makes watering and fertilizing easy, for the reasons that, you needn't worry much about over-watering, fertilizer concentrations, or fertilizer ratios in the soil solution getting badly out of bounds as you would in soils that don't allow you to correct these fluctuations by flushing. If you can't flush, WHO KNOWS what the heck the soil contains in the way of nutrient concentrations or ratios? Would you still suggest that I follow the same fertilization schedule of 1/2tsp per gallon every 2 weeks? Or would I increase that since I'd be washing away the nutrients frequent watering? If flushing the soil regularly, it makes most sense to tie the frequency with which you fertilize to the frequency with which you water. Why tie it to tha calendar when in summer you might water 3 times in a week and winter 3 times in a month? Each time you flush the soil, you flush out a fraction of what's soluble and residual. If you water 4 times in a week in summer and fertilize weekly, and water once per week in winter and still fertilize weekly, the plants will have access to MUCH more fertilizer in winter when they need less. If you simply fertilize every (say) 4th time you water, the plants will have access to the same amt of fertilizer in summer and winter. So, why not cut the winter dose in half and fertilize every 4th time you water - as you do in summer but at a higher dose? ...... or whatever interval/dose you find works for your plants. I was just inventing an example that could work well. Al

I don't get how people can't seem to live in a place instead of just squat there. The same people who went through (and PAID for!) the naturalization process and uprooted their lives abroad to get to a country can't let go of the old one. I get ethnic food and fond memories, but if you make a conscious effort to live near and exclusively interact with other ex-pats in the native language, what can you learn and know about the culture and people of your new home? When i have lived abroad (as opposed to simply traveled), i have left my American ways and language at the airport for me to collect on my way back to the US. I never looked for other Americans or spoke English. I interacted with and lived among the people with an open mind. If my language was not sufficient to get my point across, I invited people to correct me so that i learned. I ate the food, i visited the landmarks and learned about their significance. What would i have gained if i brought my flag and waved it to ward off people that were not like me, and only interacted with other Americans? Nothing but distrust of the people and culture of the place i called home. I would feel isolated and unaccepted by everyone around me, unaware that i CAUSED it myself. Everyone would seem like a racist from that perspective, wouldnt they?