Hi Jeannie - I would like to frame Rhizo's last note here for posterity! It's so true (the business about needing various sources of info. and the unfortunate fact that too many garden books have flaws (as do any such books). My information is gathered from many years of growing bonsai, some ficus, and a lot of listening/reading/watching of experts in the field. Your book may say what it does, it doesn't make it right, and because it's such a basic need of ficus anywhere (even if they survive low light) and because every serious grower I've ever heard of advocates high light, I will stick with it. Most I know have theirs within 3-4 inches of high intensity, wattage and lumen 'grow' lights of one kind or another, whether metal halide, high pressure sodium, fluorescent or something else, and their plants/trees are gorgeous, all other things being UNequal (water, fertilization, etc.). This shouldn't be personal, but maybe this helps - I'm probably a lot older than you (never mind how much :-), and so have had a lot more years to pick up all the useless trivia I spout here, and I'm sure when you get a few decades on, you'll feel exactly the same and be impatient with others too (of course we shouldn't be, but sometimes it's hard not to be!). Anyhow, I hope that your plants do well, and let's try to get along.

do a search on gardenweb for posts by tapla - he is a ficus expert and has posted LOTS of into that will help you.

Mluzan, did you ever hear of Leaf Miners? This guess is probably a long shot, but check it out..I hope anyway.. Is the plant out or indoors? Though soil shouldn't stay constantly moist, when you do water, water entire rootball. Ficus thrive in direct sun, but need to be taken out gradually.. One other this is fertilizer..Have you fed it lately? You're not overfeeding??? Toni

I would like a plant that stands upright on its own and looks compact. There are 2 ways to make your plant self-supporting. 1) Situate it so it gets at least 8 hrs of full sun. 2) Prune back regularly. A stem that is 2m tall and laying over can be pruned back to a point where the stem is straight, even if that means you have to prune it back to 50-75cm. Trunks and branches are like sticks of wood in that a long stick of a given diameter is more flexible than a short one. The tree in the middle with the large white scar is a maple I grew in beds devoted to potential bonsai trees. It was about 2.5m when I chopped it. Notice I had saved a low branch to serve as the tree's new leader after the chop. See the progress: 4 years after the chop, scar nearly closed completely ^^^ Summer of '21 ^^^ You have 2 options that will fix the issue. You can prune back the height very hard, so you have a structure which will allow you to build a tree with good eye appeal, or, you can prune back the tops to where the trunks are not lying over, then prune the branches back hard, removing those which grow almost straight up or down, and those which cross or grow back toward the center of the tree. One other possibility would be to contact a bonsai club and ask if someone would help you get it sorted out. I could do it in less than an hour if it was a tree-in-hand type of arrangement, but directing you by looking at 2D images won't work except on smaller and less complicated trees. Your tree could be pruned in a strictly conical shape - no problem; and, a year of pinching judiciously would ensure it's fullness and compactness, but you would end up with more of a topiary form. and would depend on the fullness of the foliage to hide the branch structure. That corner of the balcony looks darker than it actually is (the photo was taken against the light): I still have the ability to move it more towards the light, but it will be less sheltered from the elements in winter. You could try this: Give it full sun for the summer, then move it to a sheltered spot for winter. Here's why that will work great: The growth your tree puts on during late fall/ winter/ early spring will be lanky and weak. Ideally, you would get into a pruning rhythm that finds you pruning all the long winter growth off in May, judicious pinching until mid-late fall, then stop pinching from late fall until May's hard pruning. Pruning this way ensures that ALL internodes on the tree are tight. It makes the tree as full and compact as it can possibly be when you pair the pruning rhythm with summer pinching. PS1: Al, I'm not an expert like you, but I usually know how to heal my ficus benjamina. I will show you two plants that were very perishable at the beginning of 2019 and that I have reinvigorated. PS2: I apologize for my bad English. Your trees look very healthy, and that's the main thing. A healthy tree will tolerate a LOT of hard work when it comes to doing full repots (includes bare-rooting, root pruning, and a change of grow medium) and hard pruning. Picture story of one of mt Ficus benjaminas: Intentionally defoliated to make it easier to prune and wire ^^^ wired - starting to push a new flush of leaves ^^^ Has about half of it's leaves. Pinching will also force more back-budding. Al