The flowers on the second plant really look like ragweed flowers to me. 8 feet tall could be Giant Ragweed, Ambrosia trifida. The leaves I can see in the photo don't look quite right, but a larger image should make it clearer. Or it could be a different species from the two common ones I'm familiar with. USDA lists a bunch of species and I don't have time to go through them now. On a side note, while looking for this I went to the Dan Tenaglia's old Missouri Plants website and discovered that the Missouri Botanical Garden has taken it over and is updating it. That site was the first wildflower ID site I found on the internet back when all this was pretty new and was a real inspiration to me about what you could do along those lines, as well as being a very useful ID tool. It still is, for that matter. I'm really glad it's being continued. WW

Get some Terro ant baits from the big box stores and follow the instructions. It will wipe out the colony in a week or two.

growing trees indoors can be very tricky ... one trick is to use a media for trees.. which is not like yours.. a tree media sheds water and retains less.. as most trees prefer ... they are not water loving houseplants .. you almost treat them like cactus ... the other problem is light intensity ... indoors ... check out a bunch of these ... and learn all you can ... they make it sound like its the easiest houseplant in the world to grow.. so what do i know .... but if you start having issues.. remember what i said .... its the first 2 issues i would wonder about .... ken https://duckduckgo.com/?q=coffee+houseplant&t=ffab&ia=web ps: any green on a leaf means that leaf is still doing its job of converting light into energy... dont go cutting them off because they are ugly ... until it starts putting out new leaves to replace them ... in other words.. ignore your brown edged and boo boos... for now ...

Leaves of plants in the mulberry family (includes Ficus) aren't arranged in opposite pairs like the plant in the OP. Ficus leaves are singlets arranged alternately in roughly a helical pattern. 1 north, 1 east. 1 south, 1 west, repeat. I would: * Monitor moisture levels deep in the pot by using a "tell" ..... more on that below. * The first time the plant needs watering, I would flush the soil thoroughly ..... in case the previous owner's care practices encouraged a build up of salt residues in the grow medium from tapwater and fertilizer solutions. See below for more info. * Immediately after flushing the soil, I would fertilize with a high quality fertilizer that contains all essential nutrients in a favorable ratio. Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 does an admirable job of providing complete nutrition in a single product, and I highly recommend it. Use the production strength solution as water remaining in the medium will further dilute the solution. * After that, care would center on monitoring water needs with a tell, watering to beyond the point of soil saturation - so the medium is completely saturated at least 20% of the total volume of water applied exits the drain hole, and keeping the plant warm and in bright light. Water only when the "tell" first comes out barely moist. * If the plant is rootbound, I would plan a repot for sometime in mid-June. Think Father's Day or the summer solstice (21 June), which (all else equal) ensures the fastest recovery and minimal loss of growth potential. * In case the medium is overly water-retentive, tipping the pot to a 45* angle can help drain a considerable amount of excess water (compared to not tipping the pot). Compare B to A below to get an idea of how much difference it can make. 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. Flushing Soils When you water, you should be able to flush planting's soil to eliminate the potentiality of salts from fertilizers and tapwater accumulating in the soil, thereby limiting the plant's ability to take up water and the nutrients dissolved in the water. If you think you shouldn't flush the soil during your regular water applications for fear the soil will remain saturated for a lengthy period, limiting root function or worse, you should consider a different soil or take steps to reduce the amount of excess water your soil can hold. By whatever means necessary, getting to the point you can water correctly is going to make a very big difference in the opportunity to realize as much of it's genetic potential as possible. Once you can water correctly, you no longer have to do battle with a water-retentive medium over control of your plant's vitality. There are several methods of limiting how much water your planting can hold, all but 1 or 2 are completely passive, requiring no effort on your part other than set-up, which is monkey easy. I can help if you have interest in that, I'm continually improving my proficiency at monkey easy tasks. To flush the soil of a planting: Water with room temperature water until the soil is completely saturated. Allow the planting to rest for 15 minutes to an hour to allow as much of the salt accumulation as possible to go into solution, then pour a volume of room temp water equal to at least 10X the volume of the pot the plant is in slowly through the soil. This will remove most of any accumulation of offending salts and resolve any skewing of nutrient ratios. It's a good idea, no matter what time of year, to fertilize most plants immediately after flushing the soil. Try to be sure you're using a fertilizer that has a ratio as close as possible to the ratio at which the plant uses nutrients. The NPK % listed on fertilizer packaging is not its ratio. 7-7-7 and 14-14-14 are 1:1:1 ratios. 9-3-6, 12-4-8, and 24-8-16, are all 3:1:3 ratios. Container growers should try very hard to avoid use of fertilizers advertised as 'bloom-boosters', or any number with a middle number (Phosphorous) higher than either the first or third numbers (Nitrogen or Potassium). These fertilizers can badly skew nutrient ratios with even the first application). On average, plants use about 6x as much N as P, so there is NO potential for a positive outcome when supplying many times as much P as the plant requires. I, and a large number of other members, use Dyna-Gro's Foliage Pro 9-3-6. It's designed to closely mimic the uptake ratio of the average plant, and has many other attributes not commonly found in other fertilizers. It also has ALL of the nutrients essential to normal growth. Summarized, it makes fertilizing as easy as it can be, and from 1 container. Al