Hi,

I've got a Ficus Benjamina in dire needs of help, if it's not already too late.

I think I made a couple of big mistakes with it:
I listened to the lady at the garden center I got it from who told me not to repot it.
I left it in the lounge where my flatmate kept opening the window, even in winter.

It's now lost almost all of it's leaves, and the remaining ones look like they're about to fall off.

I looked at a lot of the other threads on similar issues with Ficus Benjamina and tried following their advice: I pruned any branches that seemed to be dead and flushed the soil.

Today I decided it really needed something done so I bare-rooted the plant and discovered I really should have done this when the plant was new. The soil around the sides and bottom of the pot was completely wet, despite it being at least 5 days since I watered it last. But the soil in the rootball was bone-dry. The roots don't seem to show signs of rot.
Another problem I noticed when removing it from the pot is that some of the bark tore very easily from the main trunk.

I then repotted it in a bagged cactus mix, it's what I had to hand and although not ideal I figured it should be much better draining than what it was in. I'd like to shift to gritty mix but I've been having trouble finding the materials here in NZ.

Then I watered it in with a light dose of Seasol (a seaweed 'tonic') and left it to drain in it's new home - the same room most of my other plants, including a Ficus Baby Ben, are happily living in.

Is there anything else I can do to help my plant? Or any mistakes I've made that could still be fixed?

Thanks,
Brinn

Also, completely unrelated, but I'm having to post this from my phone because I get error 403 access denied when I try to post from my home network. Any idea why?