looks like what we would call mechanical damage ... probably got injured somehow in shipping from grower to seller to your house ...

water when a plant needs water.. not on some random schedule ... hopefully Al will come along and tell you about tells ...

it is stressed from all the above.. just water properly for a few weeks and let it settle into its new home ...

its stressed.. not hungry.. fert is not a response ...

cant see the whole plant.. so nothing further from me..

just dont love it to death ...

ken

ps: its in a corner.. does it .. or will it. get good light there??

The effects of misting last about 10 minutes, leaving the plant to its own devices for the remaining 1,430 minutes in each day, so you can see how ineffective misting is as a method of raising relative humidity levels.

It's definitely not mechanical injury (bruises/ cuts/ tears), it's a physiologic issue. Odds are very high that the result of the necrotic areas on the leaves is a result of either over or under-watering with the greater emphasis on over-watering. It's also possible that it is a result of a too high level of total dissolved solids. Plants moved from a bright spot where they were growing well to a spot with a significantly lower light load can suffer fertilizer burn even though you might not have added fertilizer. Also, symptoms are usually presented first in the lightest part of variegated foliage.

If you have been following advice to "water when the top inch or two of the soil feels dry to touch, you've been over-watering. If you can still detect any moisture in the medium with a finger, you've been over-watering. Unless your pot is very shallow (5" or less), that is poor advice. I have 30-40 ficus, some as old as 40 years, so I'm no stranger to their care. If it was my plant, here's what I would do.

A) I would allow it to dry down so the medium is almost dry between waterings. You can monitor moisture levels deep in the pot by using a wooden "tell" to tell you when the plant actually needs water. See short piece re using a tell below.

B)When it next needs watering, flush the soil thoroughly by slowly pouring a volume of water equal to at least 10X the volume of the pot your plant is in. This will wash most of the salts from fertilizer solutions and tap-water out of the medium - like hitting the fertilizer 'reset button'. When the pot has stopped draining, fertilize with a production dose of an appropriate fertilizer. You won't find a better product than Foliage-Pro 9-3-6. I use it for all my plants other than hibiscus and tomatoes; even then, I still use it but use other additives because those plants are outliers when it comes to the ratio of nutrients they prefer.

C) Give it a very bright spot where temps won't fall below 65* and it won't get sudden cold drafts.

D) When you water, the soil should be completely saturated and at least 20% of the total volume of water applied should exit the drain hole. Do not allow the pot to sit in the effluent that exits the drain.

E) If you're watering correctly and flushing the medium as you water, you should fertilize about every 4th time you water. Drop a marble in the pot each time you water. When about to drop the 4th in the pot, fertilize with the soluble fertilizer I mentioned.

Any hard work, like heavy pruning or repotting (different than potting up) should be planned for a day around Father's Day or the Summer Solstice. The plant will recover from being worked hard during that segment of the growth cycle.

Questions?

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.

Al