One additional comment. In the last 3 weeks of having the Ficus Alii, aside from leaf droppage there has been new leaf growth. I'd say about 6 new leaves have sprouted and grown nicely. Not that I think that's a huge deal, just trying to provide any details that may be helpful.

Photos would be very helpful.

i would repot back into the original nursery pot, get rid of that extra soil and do a full repot next summer.

how much light is it getting?

This link has plenty of great info about Ficus http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/1476078/ficus-trees-in-containers-iv?n=223

You bet. Pictures on their way in a few moments. As it is already potted I don't have root pictures, I should have had the presence of mind to take them while I was doing it but I was so focused on doing things right I forgot to snap some. I can post some pictures of the leaf browning and the overall tree itself.

I’m not sure where you have the tree placed, but it looks to be getting no natural light.

do you have a photo of the current pot and soil?

the brown leaves are a sure sign of overwatering.

The new extra layer of soil you added around the bottom and sides is making it so the plant isn’t drying out between waterings. There’s likely some root rot going on.

You should also never pot up a rootbound plant. Repotting (removing all soil, untangling and root pruning is needed) is the only fix at that point.

However, repotting should be done around the longest days of the year when the teee has the most stored energy.

as I said before, your best bet is to remove it from the pot, remove the extra soil you added and place it back in its original pot until you can do a full repot in June 2018.

It is, there is a large (8 ft x 4 ft) window just 8 feet away from it. Does it need direct sunlight or is all day indirect light ok for it?

8 feet away is too far.

It would do best right up in front of a south facing window.

What may see bright to us, would be considered very low light to a plant.

My Ficus Benjamina is in front of a south facing window with lights overhead, it’s still a low light situation for the tree.

Put the tree right in front of the window (as in an inch or two away) and don’t use any shades.

Get a wooden dowel and sharpen the ends. Stick it in the soil all the way to the bottom and pull out right away. If it comes out dark, damp with soil stuck to it, do not water. Keep checking that way daily or every other day and only water when it comes out clean and dry.

I see, ok I'll get it right up to the window then so it gets the proper light. I think the soil drainage issue/root rot situation is under control now. Hopefully the increased light will help it get back in shape.

Let us know how it goes. Please feel free to ask any more questions.

Definitely use the sharpened wooden dowel as your test for watering.

I will do exactly that, Dave. Just grabbed some wooden dowel I had around and am getting a tip on it as we speak. I'll get it by the window and do the dowel test each morning before work. I will update with progress. Thanks for the help!

Glad to help!

Update: So yesterday morning the skewer came up dry so I watered again until water flowed from the bottom, cleaned up the excess water and left for work. This morning I checked again and the skewer was dry again, except for the bottom 3 inches. That area does not have roots in it, I added about 3 inches of soil to the pot initially before replacing the tree to the pot when I repotted it.

So would you say that really should have some ballast material down there? I gave Al's ballast thread a read and if I'm understanding correctly, ballast will cause there to be less soil to gather moisture so it will be a bit drier down there as a result? I could see where a wick as he recommends would be quite helpful as well. Thanks in advance!

Sounds like your soil is becoming hydrophobic.

You may need to submerge the rootmass in water for a few minutes.

Ok. I was watering with a pitcher and not getting very good surface dispersion of the water, do you think that could have caused this situation possibly? It would make sense to me that pouring water in patchy areas rather than dispersed evenly across the surface could quickly make its way to the bottom of the pot and run out the bottom giving me a false positive that watering was complete when it really wasn't. That pitcher was less than ideal, but it was what I had on hand at the time.

I have a proper watering can coming tomorrow that should allow me to water more evenly. I also added some 24-8-16 fertilizer arriving as well so I have it on hand in case it is recommended to fertilize.

When peat becomes hydrophobic, water will just flow around it and not penetrate at all.

Whats happening is when you water, it’s just going down the sides of the pot and out the bottom.

You need to take it out of the pot and fully submerge the soil and root mass for a few minutes.

This is like due in part to when you potted up and used the Walmart soil around the sides and bottom.

When you’d water, that new area of soil was getting soaked, possibly rotting the outer roots which were also not receiving any oxygen anymore, then the center started to dry out and eventually became hydrophobic.

The best fertilizer you could use would be dyna grow foliage pro 9-3-6. It’s available on eBay and other sides like that.

You should fertilize year round. More during the growing months, but you should never stop fertilizing.

My original post was a bit lengthy, I think you missed where I purchased the new soil from Amazon that seemed similar to Al's recommended mix. I had initially up potted the plant into walmart soil but realizing from reading the forums that soil was not ideal, I got rid of all of the original soil (it was buggy). So I am not currently potted with the Walmart soil (or any of the original soil) as I already repotted the plant this past Sunday (2 days ago).

I washed all of the roots and trimmed off any dark colored roots and repotted in the new mix. The description for that soil is as follows:

"Contains genuine high-grade Japanese Akadama, Turface¨ high-fired calcined clay for superior moisture retention, and FRIT vitamin and mineral blend with 28 nutrients for Bonsai trees and plants, perfectly formulated for Ficus, Chinese Elms, Jades, Junipers, and other Bonsai species"

It is very loose and light, especially in comparison to potting soil. It's nothing like potting soil actually. With that clarification, would you still recommend removing it from the pot? I have a feeling just the tree and roots will come out, I don't think it's bound up to the new soil yet.

And affirmative on the fertilizer, will get the blend you recommended and do just that, thanks.

Ah, yes I did miss that.

Was the bottom of the dowel wet or moist? If wet, you've got a perched water table, which means another repot or ballast.

BTW, did you sift the mix at all?

A picture of the mix spread out on a plate or light colored surface would be more helpful, because the picture you posted doesn't look like any example of Al's mix that I've seen. It looks like bark, along with a lot of stringy stuff that would fill at least some spaces between larger particles of bark, with only a tiny fraction of inorganic material that's much smaller than most of the bark, so even if that bark doesn't absorb moisture it might easily support perched water. If anything, the mix looks more like 5:1:1, which does stay moist at the bottom after the upper part of the pot is dry, and supports a small amount of perched water that I always drain by tilting the pot after watering.

At the risk of rambling too much, even the moisture-holding for bark in my new 5:1:1 needs very even watering of the whole surface of the pot in order to get the whole pot wet because there's not enough fine material to wick the water around. You can do this with a fast stream of water until your watering can arrives, and then you should tilt the pot to drain excess water.

Lenore

It’s really hard to tell what’s going on in that mix.

There’s a ton of sapwood that needs to be sifted as it’ll tie up nitrogen.

I see, alright so should I cut my losses at this point and redo the repot with a better mix? If so, premixed product recommendations are very welcome if there is anything good out there. I own a business so my spare time can be sparse, a premixed product would help a ton with that.

What did you put in the mix you made? Was it pre mixed?

i would go with the standard 5:1:1 mix. Pine bark fines, peat, perlite and dolomite lime.

There are really no good straight from the bag mixes out there.

I know it sucks with less free time, but making you’re own is the way to go.

Softing and particle size is extremely important.

Roger that. Yeah it was pre-mixed, bought on Amazon ($45 in soil haha, c'est la vie). Ok, so correct me if any of this is incorrect. My best bet considering where I'm at is to:

- go ahead and put together a 5:1:1 mix as soon as possible and
- do a repot on this Ficus with the new mix
- continue checking on the water with a dowel to get a watering schedule and
- fertilize regularly (1x per week?)
- ensure it is kept by the window for proper light

Just trying to get an action plan together to ensure success.

Perhaps add to that checklist add ballast in the bottom of the pot as an extra precaution against perched water? Thanks again for all the help folks, I can't stress my appreciation enough.

You won't need ballast with 5:1:1 because it retains very little water. Mine retains so little than I could go without tilting, but it sounds like yours retains more water.

The rule is to let the whole pot dry out before watering thoroughly.

I'd like to know if the tip of the dowel comes out wet or moist.

In this situation the roots haven't had time to grow much, so watering before the bottom is dry might possibly be okay just to keep the roots moist. If the dowel is just moist AND you are certain there are no roots within four inches of the bottom of the pot (that is, at least an inch away from the top of the zone that's drying slowly), water thoroughly, let it drain, and tip to remove excess water. If it's wet OR if there may be some roots less than four inches from the bottom of the pot, use something small with a spout-- measuring cup, gravy boat, small pitcher--to let some water trickle onto the mix, but not enough to get all the way to the bottom. Try to stick to the areas where you know the roots are, not the very edges of the pot.

I would like to add, in addition to all the good comments about the soil, that ficus species tend to drop leaves like there's no tomorrow when exposed to low-light situations. Your photo of where the plant was located was very low light, so I would suspect that as one of the reason for huge leaf drop.

The water and soil situation may well be a contributing factor, especially the salty one from Walmart initially (gods that sort of stuff is garbage - not blaming you, but people selling it are {redacted}). I think the water and salt situation may have contributed to the brown spotting on leaves as well.

Got it, thanks for that feedback Veronika. I think that you guys are right about the location being too low light. I'm working on improving the lighting situation for the plant. I live in a 3 apartment home, I am in the middle. So I have that window in the front that was pictured and the sliding door in the back of the place with a smaller kitchen window.

My plan is getting this plant in the front window, removing the blinds and relying on curtains for privacy at night. I can leave a portion of the curtains open at night so it gets morning light right off the bat, then open the curtains when I wake at 7:30. Unfortunately, my home is surrounded by trees (I live in NE Pennsylvania). I wish the time of year was more ideal to leave the plant outside. Would you say I may be well served to put it outside if the temps will permit throughout the day, and just bring it in when I get home around 6:30pm? We still have a bit of mid to high 60's around here for the time being. If that's a possible approach to give it some much needed constant light, what temps should I be sure to keep it out of (nothing below 60 say?). Thanks in advance.

Mike, you could potentially invest in a plant light - some of those out there are better-looking than others. I use a LED UFO (blue+red+UV) 300+W light, but I can only run that at night when I am asleep, because it shines HIDEOUSLY pink. There are also white lights available, though often in less-pretty packages (metal reflectors etc.), so it all depends on your situation and how much money you have to play with.

I was wondering about that. Spending money is not really a problem for me. If you think a plant light could help even just as a supplemental I'll put it on the buy list. Also, something I was curious about witht that... It's not very important, but is under lighting the plant less good than lighting it from above? I would assume it is, just curious for aesthetic reasons. Plant health comes first of course, if it's an option though I'd like to know.

Your akadama soil is one of the best soil for potted plant. It's give good water retention, also good drainage. People sometimes mixed up between water retention and drainage, thinking that high water retention is equivalent with bad drainage that make the soil too wet. That's not true. Akadama relatively big particles, so there are enough space between particles for water to pass through every watering so the soil only moist, not wet, that's safe for the root. In individual piece of akadama have pores that stored water. It's good in water retention that make soil moist longer evenly, prevent the root to dry out in any part of the pot. Pine bark, even if it have good drainage, but weak on water retention, so gravity will push water to bottom of the pot quick, leaving dry part near the surface. Honestly, the price not lie, you have one of the best already.

..but your pic above doesn't look like akadama..

Gotcha. Yeah the description on the soil is that it *contains* akadama, not that it is purely akadama. So there may just be some akadama mixed in it. Drainage on this soil seems to be pretty decent. I'm finding that I have to water it every 2 days. Throughout that time, the mixture seems to be remaining moist up until the 1.5 day mark it begins getting drier, but equally so.

I've got the plant in front of the window for full light and it is getting a good bit of it. It feels healthier already, likely just because I'm staring at a plant bathed in sunlight as it should be now. We'll see how the week goes. I'm hoping to see much less leaf dropping now that I'm fertilizing once a week, have good drainage and a watering schedule and have it in full light (aside from when it's overcast like today).

I'll add that I'm planning on purchasing a grow light in the near-ish future as the winters here can be kind of brutal and constantly overcast. This area just goes gray in the winter. I'd like to consruct a take down stand (or purchase) so I can extend it up when I need it and shrink it down when I don't. That way, while I'm out to work during the day it can still get it's proper light while the days are gloomy if it seems to need it.

Update: I've gotten the leaf drop to the point where there is either no leaf drop or very occasionally one leaf dropped in a day through a combination of a good water schedule, fertilizer and proper lighting in front of my large front window. I see a whole mess of green spikes growing out of the branches, am I correct in assuming this is new leaf growth preparing to come in? I've searched for images of ficus alii new leaf growth and am coming up empty handed.

Hey! Green spiky things are future leaves - ficus leaves come in very pointy looking with little sheaths covering them (don't worry when those start to fall off). Somehow I missed your question regarding plant lights - if you get really dark winter days, a plant light is definitely a big help, and you can just hang it up at right height and then flip it on on days when it looks like it's going to need it. However, if it's recovering already without a plant light, it may well not be necessary - what latitude are you on?

Great, that's what I figured. Thanks for all the help everyone. So far, so good.