Since you haven't gotten a response, try posting this in the "discussions" section of the houseplants forum. Good luck. Gabi

Geez, I keep losing the start of this post. I'll try again: It sounds and looks like overwatering, though I'm not really familiar with rubber plants. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm off base. First of all I'm assuming the pot has a drain hole in it. If it doesn't, get it into a pot that does ASAP. The bottom half of the pot can be saturated with water, drowning and killing roots that are starved of oxygen by the lack of air, even when the top few inches of the soil are dry. Roots need soil that's moist, not wet, so you need to water in a way that lets that happen. Here's a quote from a post by Al (tapla) describing the fix, and my summary of other stuff he's written on the forum. Al: You can prevent overwatering by A) testing the soil deep in the container with a wood dowel ... wet & cool - do not water, dry - water. B) feeling the wick & only watering when it's dry C) feel the soil at the drain hole & only water when it feels dry there. Soils feel dry to our touch when they still have 40-45% moisture content. Plants, however, can still extract water from soils until they dry down to about 25-30%, so there is still around a 15% cushion in that plants can still absorb considerable moisture after soils first feel dry to us. Water slowly until the soil is saturated but no water (or very little water) has exited the pot drain. Wait 10-15 minutes and water again so at least 15-20% of the volume of water used ion both applications flushes out the accumulating salts. After the pot stops draining, you can return it to its normal spot and arrangmt. Wait until time to water again & repeat the routine. Me: Watering when the plant needs it (and not before) is one of the biggest things you can do to keep any plant healthy. Like most plants, aerated soil is as critical to a ficus's health as sunshine. That's why we check soil moisture. A sharpened dowel is a simple, fast, and accurate tool for this (5/8" or 1/4" seems best), but any thin piece of unfinished wood, like a wooden skewer or even a cheap chopstick, works fine too. Stick the dowel through the soil to the very bottom of the pot, leave it for two seconds, and withhold water until the whole dowel comes out completely dry (don't worry, at that point there's still water within the soil particles that the roots can access but we can't feel). Then water slowly but thoroughly, wetting the entire surface of the soil, until water drains freely from the pot, making sure the pot doesn't sit in the drained water. To get excess water out of the pot so the soil at the bottom doesn't stay completely saturated, prop it up so it's tilted at 45 degrees for 10-15 minutes. If there are drain holes around the edges of the bottom you're done (that's why I love my cheap plastic pots); if the holes or holes aren't at the edges you'll leave the pot upright for 5-10 minutes to let the excess water drain out. This practice ensures the roots get substantial periods in moist, not wet, soil, when they can get oxygen from the air between soil particles and grow into a healthy system that takes up water and nutrients stores water for dry periods. Watering until water drains freely from the pot prevents the buildup of mineral and fertilizer deposits that can damage the plant and retard growth.

OK - the loss of leaves is almost certainly happening because a decrease in light or an under/over-watering problem, so we're going to get you set up so that won't happen as long as you're holding up your end of the partnership. I'm going to assume you won't mind a little homework if it helps you get over the hump. So, the first thing you should do is start using a 'tell', to 'tell' you when it's time to water. I'll leave a piece I wrote about using a tell at the end of my post. A tell is more accurate than a finger or moisture meter, and you'll only need to use it until you get used to knowing when it's time to water by hefting the pot. When using lightweight plastic pots, it's easy to tell if the planting needs water by its weight. Order a small bottle of Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 fertilizer online, unless you can find it locally at maybe a hydroponics store. I have a lot of ficus from a month old to about 50 years old - they're all vibrantly healthy and fertilized with the Foliage-Pro 9-3-6. The next time your plant needs water, flush the soil thoroughly. Take it to the sink and use the spray device to water. You want to be sure you put at least 10X the pot's volume through the soil, slowly. This is a 1 time thing, purpose of which is to reset the level of stuff (dissolved solids) in the soil to zero - like hitting a fertilizer reset button. I'll help you get started on a good fertilizer program when you start seeing new growth. That will be a signal the mass of the root system is large enough and it's healthy enough to actually support new foliage. I expect you to see new growth almost immediately. Immediately in tree time is maybe a month or so, but well before that - I'm thinking within a week. Back to watering now. You can't water with tapwater that's been through an ionic exchange water softening system - it will quickly (tree time) kill your plant. When you water, make sure the entire soil mass is saturated and at least 25% of the water it took to saturate the soil exits the pot. This helps to regularly flush the dissolved solids (salts) that accumulate from tapwater and fertilizer solutions out of the soil. You'll be fertilizing every 3rd or 4th time you water, so you'll be replacing the lost nutrients. Watering & fertilizing this way also keeps the ratio of nutrients correct. Most plants take up about about 6X as much Nitrogen as Phosphorous, so it's best if the actual fertilizer ratio reflects that. Also, it doesn't get its N from urea, so your plants growth won't be as coarse and gangly as it would be using a fertilizer that gets its N from urea. After you've watered, hold the pot over the sink and move it up and down. You'll immediately see that on the reversal from downward to upward, water comes out of the drain hole. Thank Mr Newton for that. Newtons First Law of Motion says that things in motion tend to stay in motion and in the the direction they are moving, unless acted upon by another force; so, any excess water in the soil moves out of the pot on reversal from down to up. The sharper the reversal, the more water you can remove. Take advantage of this trick. Most container media are much too water-retentive for best results, this is a fix for that when pots are easy to manage. If you have a spot, your plant will absolutely love being outdoors - dappled or open shade at first, then gradually habituate the plant to full sun. If you have ANY questions - even if you think they sound silly - ask them. No one is here to look down on you, and if they do, there are plenty helpful people who will help to make that stop. This is going to work really well. and you're going to be pleased, but the best thing you can do to improve your proficiency is to work to understand WHY you're doing these things, and I can help with that as well. As you get more advanced, you'll soon see that your choice of media is probably the most important choice involved in getting a planting started or repotting a plant. Here's the info about: 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 leads 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. 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. This is an Overview of Good Growing Practices This is specifically about Long Term Care of Ficus in Containers This is aboutHow Water Behaves in Container Substrates Right now, they are in order of value to you. Ultimately, understanding the information provided in piece about how water behaves in soil will advance your ability to garden in containers farther and faster than just about anything else you can do. I'm not saying that because I wrote it, I'm saying that because of the public and private feedback I get from those who understand it. I often provide this sequence of images when I'm asking someone to put a little faith in me, because it lets them know I actually grow and manipulate healthy trees - lots of them. Ficus Benjamina at about 8 years old - long ago ^^^ Same tree, not so long ago ^^^ Same tree ^^^ - purposely defoliated to make it easier to work on Same tree a few weeks later after a pruning and wiring for shape. BTW - I won't be asking you to do any of this type of manipulation. Al

The brown spots on the inferior side of the leaves are symptoms of the physiological disorder, 'oedema (or edema)'. 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. Al