How much light does it receive? How often do you water? What soil did you use? What fertilizer did you use? What growing zone are you in?

If rootbound, it's likely the water is going through the loose new potting soil at the edge of the rootball but not through the rootball itself.

Sometimes the biggest available plant isn't the best choice.

HI goldstar135. It is in a corner, no direct sun but reflected light from a wall in front were receives sun. Also atificial light 3-4 hours per day from 2 diffrent lamps around the tree - 1 has 100w the other 4 meters away- 160w

The soil is general purpose without fertiliser from the local florist sais on it that contains "total nitrogen 1.6% ureic nitrogen 1.6%, arhidrido fosforico 0.8%, potasium oxide 2%." I watered since adding soil 4 times in 2 weeks with 60-70 ml of tap water

I live in Barcelona, Spain and have no experience with plants. I have other 2 small benji that goes well, one outside on the balcony and another in othe room

@Jean - I did not buy it so big, I rescued from the garbage, someone belive it or not threw it to die..

So, guys any ideas why?

What shuld I do?

Thanks a lot!

It's not getting enough light. Move it in front of a window where it receives direct light from the sun.

Photos of the soil and pot?

did you remove the plant from the old pot, put it in a new one and just fill the bottom and sides with soil? Or did you actually repot and bare root the plant and untangle roots?

how much larger is the new pot?

how do you know when it's time to water? What are you using to test the soil?

by looking at it, I'm thinking the soil is staying moist too long and you're over watering. There's likely some root rot going on.

you should also throughly check for pests. Sometimes people throw out plants for a reason. Spider mites would be the hardest to detect if you haven't seen them on a plant before.

Hi Dave! Thanks for the answer. I just puted in a bigger pot and aded fresh soil (a black type) around and under. Was imposible to clear some of the old soil (i did but just a litlle but) as smal roots were all over on old's pot shape. it was like a solid block of mix roots and old soil.And from what I understand is dificult and dangerous to trim roots at benjis anyway. The new pot has arround 60-70 in diameter at the top whith around 20 cm bigger in diameter.

I water it when the soil is dry but with this black soil is difficult to tell when, is always black. I ll put a photo later.

It is imposible to move it somewhere else unfortunately, it is the only free place.. Could i do something diffrent instead? I have a 100 w lamp running 6 hours per day bouncing the light to with the sealing since 2 days, do this will help?

Thanks a lot!

Actually, it's not hard of ficus to remove and untangle roots.

I have a ficus Benjamina that's larger than this one and I have bare rooted it before.

The tree is in a drought response. So it's either being over or under watered. It would respond just about the same.

Get a sharpened wooden dowel and stick it in the soil through the roots all the way to the bottom. If it comes out dry, you need to throughly soak the soil. If it comes out dark and stained, you need to want until it comes out dry before you water.

Even without this issue, it's not getting enough light and would lose a lot of leaves. The 100w lights you speak of aren't enough to actually help unfortunately.

can you post a photo of the pot and soil?

Hi Dave! Tried to get a stick into the "original" soil of the tree but is hard as stone. I know, you ll say I have to re-pot. But when I found it was with the same block like soil and was doing well. So my ideea is that is a change of enviroment, maybe not enough light, as you say? There is any other way to save him then to prone the roots? A friend said that benji usualy adapt so should just give him some time. What you recon?

It may just need more water. It looks kind of wilted in the first photo. Have you tried picking up the whole pot? If it's lightweight it could use a drink of water! If it's heavy, it probably doesn't. And I agree about the light! Mine is in a direct southwest window. Good job on the rescue!!!! Nice save!

The tree won't adapt if there are factors that are extremely limiting. Especially if they'll likely lead to death

You need to figure out if it's too much or too little water.

can you put it outside? How warm is it?

Thanks guys for the answers. Did not had time to answer but i did try to figure it out if is to much or too little watering. I think may be to little because when I water the actually water us not getting to the plate under the pot. So because I suspect is because is little water I decided to try something. I watered every day and paying attention at how many leaves fall..to see if there are more or are less than before. I know is risky but I don t know other way on how to figure out if is under or over watered. And I trust Benji, looks like a strong tree

After 3 days it looks like there are less leaves falling but still too early to be sure. Even this way, the water does not get to the tray (on the sides the soil is not as compact as in the middle)

Benjaminas are very fickle. Move them from one location to another area & they'll shed leaves. I can see that this plant is going through root shock. Don't overwater or fertilize or repot it. It just needs to recover. The roots are damaged and cannot absorb as much liquid. & you shld never fertlize a newly transplanted plant. Normally when you transplant you need to water the plant well beforehand so that it's nourished and can handle the process. Ficus plants are abundant where I used to live and they grow below the tree canopies and snake their way up towards the sunlight. It can handle lowlight conditions. The one we have presently thrives on old fluorescent lighting. Be prepared that it will lose branches now. But for as long as the trunk is healthy it will regrow back limbs and leaves.

Try reading this.

Your plant has several issues to deal with at once. Your basic plan should be:

* Get the plant outdoors as soon as possible - when nights are above 13*C.

* Monitor water needs carefully. Use a wood dowel to test moisture levels. Make sure the entire root mass is soaked when you water, and don't water again until the dowel says it's dry.

* When the plant has recovered and is putting on a flush of growth, repot it (June or July. You can saw the bottom 1/3 of the roots off. Remove all old soil and problem roots. More about repotting here.

* When you repot, make SURE you repot into a soil that allows you to water to beyond saturation (so you're flushing the soil of accumulating salts from fertilizers and tapwater) when you water. More about soils here.

If you read and gain an understanding of the information I linked you to, you'll have the basics needed to maintain your trees in good health for your lifetime.

BTW - Ficus b that are in good health are very forgiving of heavy root work. Witness:

This was written about caring for Ficus b over the long term.

Al

Further to what I've said please read up on this https://plantcaretoday.com/why-do-ficus-trees-lose-leaves.html

Hi all! Thank you for all the advices! The tree looses less leaves now but overall leaves started to get yelowish all over the canopy. So after heavy reading on internet i got to this conclusions:

-at the begining the tree was getting suddenly yellowing leaves for the change of the enviroment.

- than was loosing leaves less fast and less suddnly yellowing for the lack of water (old soil hard as stone)

-after that -because I havely watered the solid soil finaly got wet.

-now the leaves start to yellow slow but sure because that solid soil does not allow drain. (and they get yellow from the base to the tip - I understand this can be a sign of rooting roots also?)

So my conclusion is that I got to square one - totally removel of the old soil and change it with new one. I can t get the tree closer to windows, I think is the last thing that I can do in my case. .What do you think? A total restart Hope he will survive!

I can tell you firsthand it needs more light. Can you put it outside when temps are warm enough?

can you use any grow lights?

yes, change out the soil to something fast draining. You need to do a full repot. Make sure you keep the roots misted and wet while they're out of the soil.

My tree is about 7 feet tall. It's right in front of a south facing window that receives direct light AND has six 4 foot 6500k T8 lights overhead. It would still love a lot more light. So I move it into direct sun outdoors all summer.

The tree is in an 18" terra cotta pot in the 5:1:1 mix (5 parts pine bark fines, 1 part peat, 1 part perlite and some dolomite lime). It's very fast draining and now that the tree is activity growing more this time of year, it needs water about every 3/4 days.

I'm posting these photos to show that you can have a beautiful large indoor ficus Benjamina without any issues. You just need to get watering, soil and light conditions that allow.

hmm.. so how many times have you repotted this poor plant since purchasing it?

Who are you asking?

Thanks you Ianna and Dave for shareing all this knowledge and your experience with me! I had a free day on last wednesday and I worked on Benji. I took out all the old soil, cleaned up the roots, also trimed the lower 1/3 part of the small ones and also trimed the small ones on sides. The main strong roots of the tree were not long but rather fat, like a big trunk under the soil level.

I changed the old soil with basic soil that has some growing substance in it and I mixed it with perlite. After these 4 days I am not very sure but I think that some leaves from the old ones light green start to get greener (dark green) it s that posible or it is just in my mind?

Also, no leaves to fall in 4 days, that's a relief!

Thank you guys again! I will keep you noted about the evolution!

A note on artificial light: my two poorly-lit ficuses looked worse than yours before I started using 100 watt 5000K in clamp-on fixtures on my plants last October, and they both responded with lots of new leaves. At that point my windows didn't get enough direct sun to make any difference.

Now there's enough direct light coming in the windows to make a difference, and the ficuses have improved as much in the past five weeks as they did in the first five months.

Assuming your 100 watt bulb is the right temperature (5000-6500 K), shining it directly on the plant should at least reduce the decline to the degree that light is the limiting factor. Add another bulb on the opposite side to get more benefit.

I couldn't tell whether you ever made sure the dense root ball ever got soaked through. If not, fill a container large enough to hold the pot with filtered water (you don't want to add root-choking dissolved minerals) and submerged the entire pot until a while after it stops bubbling. Once the roots have been soaked you should be able to push a chopstick through the root ball with a little force, and you shouldn't have to speak it again so long as you water before the root ball is bone dry.

As others have said, water by what the plant needs, not buy what you think it needs. I either water in the kitchen or over a large bucket with lengths of 2X2 woods laid across it, which allows me to catch the excess from watering freely.

Finally, I strongly suggest reading the posts Al linked. They're packed with info, but will help you understand how to give your plants what they need.