Hi y'all, I hope your plants are doing well this winter! I wanted to check in to make sure I'm taking care of my ficus properly now that I've moved it indoors. I used to water it 2-3 times a week outdoors with a full gallon of water + DynaGro FoliagePro 9-3-6 liquid fertilizer. It responded very well to this treatment and new leaves grew to replace the initial shed it underwent when I repotted. San Antonio started getting into the 30s and 40s so I brought it inside during November. Now that it's indoors in front of this second-story west facing window, I've started watering it once every week and a half (or once I watered it after two weeks). I also use about a half gallon of water. I am still fertilizing it. I have it raised in a clay tray on top of some marbles so it doesn't stand in water. Plus I have a plastic tray underneath the clay one to hold excess water. It's probably been getting more sunshine than it used to when it was outdoors, because it used to be on a shaded patio and now it gets lots of sunshine from this window. Now for my questions! Many leaves have been yellowing and dropping in the past couple of weeks. Do you all think this is just a normal response to a somewhat finicky plant like a ficus benjamina being moved to a new environment? Or am I perhaps watering it too much? Or did I not water it enough (like that time I accidentally didn't water it for two weeks)? Pics!

There are inherent limitations in a soil that takes 2 weeks to dry down to the point the grower feels it's safe to water again. We have to allow too, that since you haven't been monitoring moisture levels, the plant might be capable of going much longer between waterings, which would tend to increase the level of limitations associated with too much water in the soil. Given the size of the plant and the size of the container, the only way that can occur is by virtue of the fact the soil holds a lot of excess water. The soils I use require watering every 1-4 days, depending on the pot size and weather or indoor conditions. Keep in mind that most of my plantings are bonsai, so the ratio of plant mass to soil volume is very different than growing in a container as large as yours. I do have many dozens of plants growing on for bonsai in containers the size of the one you pictured and much larger, however. I think plantings that actually DO require watering every 2-3 days probably represent the best opportunity for plants to realize as much of their genetic potential as possible, but you'll need to decide weather or not you're willing to work toward getting to that point and subsequently making the effort it takes to water that frequently. Since we might never know what caused the leaf drop, it's probably best to confront the issue on several cultural fronts. My plan for the plant in the short term would be to take steps to significantly reduce the volume of excess water your planting can hold. That can be done in a variety/combination of ways. I'd see what I could do about getting it more light and maintaining a constant temp of about 70* or warmer. I'd flush the soil at regular intervals and fertilize regularly. Unless there are other potential limiting factors we don't know about, these suggestions should allow your plant to recover. Because the above doesn't go into a lot of detail doesn't mean I can't. If you're up for making the effort, you'll get all the help you need, a good part of it in the form of homework I'll link you to. After you read it, ask about anything it leaves you wondering about. Al

Roots were kept moist throughout. Cleared off every bit of soil we could and untangled roots, then removed lower portion. I did recognize that it was more like regular soil and have been letting it dry fully (2.5 weeks before 2nd watering). I check by digging my finger in as low as I can. For the first year I was watering every 2-3 weeks. I would not be surprised to hear that I overpotted. The pot used to contain the plastic one that the tree came in for the first year, and I moved into the containing pot instead when repotting since the plastic one was a mess and cracking.

Branching is combination of 2 aspects. First is root performance, second is auxin-cytokinin switching. When you pruning your tree, you remove auxin from the apex, so cytokinine take over plant growth and promote branching. You'll get 1, 2 or more buds as a result depend on root performance. After your tree have buds, the tree have auxin again on the apex that take over growth leadership from cytokinine, make any available stem to keep growing. On your first pruning, you got 2 buds, that because root performance only able to support the grow of 2 buds. In ground, when you cut the trunk of a big tree, you'll get maybe 10 buds or more as a result. That's because the difference in root performance. Your 2nd attempt to make backbudding only give you 1 bud on each stem. It's mean the root performance still unable to support more than 2 branches at same time at same speed rate. To make your tree able to have more than 2 branches, 2 steps needed. First is increase root performance on uptake nutrients, second is slowing down the stem growth speed by inhibit auxin effects on the apex. You can increase root performance by fix all root problems and give it bigger space to absorb nutriens. Better root performance will produce more buds. Sunlight inhibit auxin. It will make all buds grow slower, but equal, all grow, no domination one over another. White spot on leaves can be caused by dust and dew. Black spots commonly caused by fungus. From midnight till morning, dew can cover the leaves few hours. It's enough to make fungal spores active.