If you live in the south, plant it outside at least 20 feet from any structures or fences.

I live in Kansas, our weather is pretty unpredictable so I don't know if I'd feel comfortable with that. Also, I am currently renting

Because the tree can't support its own weight, you should keep the need for a pruning session at the back of your mind until better times for pruning roll around next summer. Many things can cause F elastica to shed foliage. A diminished light load, over/under-watering, root congestion, nutrient deficiencies - particularly those that involve the nutrients that are mobile in the plant, are probably the most common causes. You can solve the over-watering and root congestion at the same time by repotting into a soil that allows you to water correctly (to beyond the point of full saturation) w/o the plant having to pay a penalty for prolonged periods of soil saturation. The right soil also makes nutritional supplementation super easy.

I would suggest, too, that you start using a wooden dowel rod (sharpened in a pencil sharpener) as a 'tell'. Stick it deep into the soil. If it comes out muddy or stained dark by soil moisture, withhold water until it comes out clean.

Al

I would suggest, too, that you start using a wooden dowel rod (sharpened in a pencil sharpener) as a 'tell'. Stick it deep into the soil. If it comes out muddy or stained dark by soil moisture, withhold water until it comes out clean.

I agree with the above^-I believe moisture meters like the one you have measure only electrical conductivity using salt levels in the soil, not actually the moisture level in the pot.

I cannot see the pot well in photos, but the stalk that's gone wrinkled is dead - I suspect you will end up removing it. Does your pot have drainage holes? Because regardless of the type of soil, if the water is not draining out of the bottom, it will cause root rot and that may well account for all the symptoms that you are seeing.

I hadn't even thought of the moisture meter only using electrical conductivity. I have some wooden rods or skewers lying around, I'll try one of those.

As for the drainage holes - the pot does have them but it's so large and the soil is so dense, I never notice any water actually coming out of the drainage holes at the bottom. Maybe I should attempt to repot into a completely new pot when I change the soil?

So the problem arise when it moved to your house? One that responsible the most on removing possible excess water is the plant itself as an active living thing. Plant able to remove excess water on their feet if they get good air circulation and/or heat. Soil effect plant, but plant also effect the soil. In good environment, ficus able to metabolism normally in wider range of soil types. Light important for photosynthesis, but before that, air circulation and heat needed on evaporation, transpiration, to lift water and nutrients up. Sometimes, just open a window will solve many problems.

I think litterbuggy is right - based on what you describe about soil/pot situation, I'd repot the plant even if it's a non ideal time for it. Another thing you could try to do is poke the dowel up into the drainage holes of the pot to see if they have clogged up, or if there are rocks that press down on them and stop drainage, and see if water comes out of the holes after that, which may be a shot-term relief solution as well. That said, if you can get a grow light, the time of year for repotting is of lesser importance, since they compensate for winter darkness pretty well (as designed).

I use a 310W UFO LED grow light in my living room (I'm in Norway so we are at high latitudes, and winter has dim light), and I can only run it when we are asleep, because the light is not at all living-room friendly. The actual fixture is decent-looking (white flat cylindrical fixture with down-pointing LED elements that hangs of a hook in a ceiling), but the light it gives off is sunlight-bright (obviously) hot highlighter-marker type neon pink. It is very hard on the eyes and mental state (unless you really really LIKE pink, which I do not, but who knows).

The pink LED does work great (my chili peppers are ripening and blooming under it with about 8-9 hours per day), and it is cheaper to run for same output of lumen than some other grow lights (which also tend to have ugly reflectors less suitable for a living room), so it may be a solution if you can set it on a timer for when you aren't around. And you can get one of these for about $50 on ebay (something like this one - just make sure to get a US plug if you are in the States - there are usually options to select what sort you are buying).

If you're using grow lights like the ones Veronika has, you'll need to include the blue variety because foliage plants like ficuses need a lot of high frequency light, though red/pink light won't hurt them. That's why most of us stick with 100-150 watt 5000-6500k bulbs, whether it's fancy commercial grow lights, metal halide high output thingies, T8 or T12 bulbs in shop lights, or CFLs and LEDs in inexpensive clamp-on $5 workshop fixtures that we bought on sale at the grocery store or Home Depot (like me!).

Litterbuggy - the UFO LED light most definitely does have blue-spectrum elements in it. It is just that the red+blue+UV LEDs (to cover the full spectrum of what the plants can absorb) together combine to a hideously hot pink (not red) light.

I picked the UFO light fixture for decent (when not turned on) looks and ease of hanging (one hook, it comes with hanging wires), but I obviously did make sure it doesn't just radiate part of the spectrum! Little did I know that it'll make my living room window glow like something in red-light district in Amsterdam (comment by a Dutch friend).

I am considering buying a HID lamp for the living room in the future, provided I can find something that doesn't look ugly, at which point I plan to stick the pink-glowing thing into a storage room and put propagation trays and the like under it in the winter. If you have advice on those (the white-light varieties), I would appreciate it!

Thanks, Veronika. Go over to the "Growing Under Lights" forum and you'll see talk of all kinds of seasonal and species-specific light frequency tweaking among the serious growers.

So far the only lights I've used are the 5000k LEDs I already talked about, but I could do it over I'd use at least some 150W and/or 6500k bulbs. I need more supplemental light after having seen how well the plants respond to even the most basic setup, and I have to do it soon because I had to take the plants inside a month sooner than expected. My next move will probably be hanging two 2-foot shop fixtures with T8 tubes and decent reflectors just in front of two of my windows to cover the larger plants, and installing a shelf halfway up the third window with the existing lights mounted above it for cuttings and other shorties like my newly-stumpy schefflera. I'm pretty lazy, though, so I may end up plopping down $100 for off-the-shelf fixtures.

I'm sticking with white light, though. I'm one of those people who gets sluggish in the winter, and my apartment doesn't even have decent natural light in the summer, and I noticed a big difference in my mood after I replaced most of the 3000k soft white bulbs in the living room with 5000k bulbs last winter. I just make sure the timer turns the plant lights off by 7::00 or I have trouble going to sleep.

Litterbuggy, sorry for slow reply! We are renovating the house, so I am often up to my eyeballs in contractors and not always checking here. Thanks for the advice re: forum, I will take a look! So far my plants are responding really well to the light I have, even if I have to run it when I am not looking.

I am considering buying a much smaller version of it and hanging it in the kitchen (set to run at night as well) to grow some herbs there - but first I might try to do without since the windows there are non-shaded South exposure so they might possibly get enough light.