A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2004 Please help my weeping fig tree!!

I've had a small (3 foot) fig tree for about a year or so. Recently I moved it into a new house where it got moderate light from bright bay windows. It not subjected to any drafts of any kind. All the sudden it began dropping leaves at an incredible rate. Two of the three main limbs were completely bare. I panicked. I let the soil dry out and moved it closer to the window (which has a thin sun filter on it to protect the furniture from fading) and watered it again. No water came out into the saucer. It stopped dropping leaves and now the two limbs that are bare are very dry and brittle. The bark is shriveled and it looks like it was obvioulsy thirtsy. Today the leaves on the one good trunk are dry and wilted. I watered it thoroughly with some fertilizer. Do you think I should cut off the other limbs? They are about 1 inch in diameter. Any ideas to what could be causing this problem. This plant has incredible sentimental value to me and I want to do everything I can to help it out. Thank you so much for any advice. :0) Also, I have found some very small mushrooms in the soil. With heads on them about the size of a dime. They are white or grey in color. Is there something wrong with my soil? It seems fine but the mushrooms are throwing me off and also the fact that the plant seems dry. Any help would be much appreciated.

Erica

Erica, i have a ficus tree a friend gave me. When i brought it home many leaves fell off. But this is NORMAL until the plant gets adjusted. i use to fertilize untill i found out that the water that ran out of the bottom of the pot was black-litterally. So i fugured i shouldn't fertilize it. I brought it to the bathroom sink where i constantly ran water through till the water was clear. My room is facing the west with curtains open 24/7. it is placed on a night stand in the corner of the room which the walls are white. I water it about every 3-4 weeks in the bathroom. when i water, i always run water through it. and i actually run the water for a couple minutes at a low flow so the water doesn't overflow the pot. I also make sure water is running out the bottom of the pot as i throughly water the plant. It is doing very good now with many new leaves and doesn't drop leaves anymore. I would take out the mushrooms from the pot and just flush down the toilet. Please try watering at the sink and just soak it, making sure the water is running through the bottom of the pot. I know it's a bad sign when black water runs out from the bottom of the pot. this is why i totally flushed the plant out with water till the water is clean/clear. PLEASE keep me updated for i really want to help you. Robert

Thank you so much for your reply! I am wondering if this pot even has holes going to the drainage saucer though because I got it on sale and it looks like it has some glue on the bottom part. Kind of hard to explain but i am wondering if I should move it to a better drained pot and see if that makes a difference. Do you think this would be too much stress? I don't think I have ever seen water come out of the bottom of this ceramic pot and I am thinking it is just soaked way down in there. Let me know what you think. Thank you so much for your advice!!

Erica, transplant it in a pot with holes in it. Then water throughly under the sink till you get clean/clear water. If you can, place near a west window. Robert

Mr. will creed helped me with this one over the summer ^.^ He wrote a ficus manual of some sort.

What a ficus does is it grows leaves that are used to a certain type of light. So when different kinds of light are introduced, the ficus drops those leaves, and grows new ones that are more used to the new light. So don't change watering habits m'kay? That'll just put more stress on the plant.

*thinks* So ya, when your plant rains leaves, don't do anything but care for it like you would normally ^.^ They do like having indirect sunlight from what i've experienced

~Phoebe

Thank you guys so much for this advice. I'm so glad that there were people who could help me. I was thinking about it yesterday and I realized that I'd only been in this house for a couple months and maybe that's just how long it took it to realize it was in a new enviornment. So, I think I will move it to a new better drained pot (because I think that is still a problem) and other than that leave the poor guy alone. It dropped more leaves today. after not losing any for like a week. So now it has less that 1/3 the leaves it started with. It looks so sad!! Alright. I will keep you guys posted. Thanks again for all the help both of you.

Erica, when you transplant in a pot, just run the water through slowly for a few minutes-making sure water is flowing out the bottom. Make sure the water is clean/clear to flush out excess fertilizer and this will "clean" the roots as well. let it drain then place in a dish to catch the excess of the water. then place in a west window. It will grow new leaves soon. Robert