Ficus Help

Hey everyone. I have this ficus (one that you get from walmart and it has giant roots as a trunk). I airlayered the top off this growing season and it has been doing fine. I brought it in when the weather got below 50 f. It had some yellowing leaves but I figured that was normal. All of a sudden all the leaves started turning a dull green and fall off pretty easily. It does get less light than it was outside. Ideas?

Where are you keeping it indoors? How often are you watering it? How long ago did you separate the air layer?

Hi Jake

It is normal ficus drop all their leafes when they are being taking in the house, after a summerstay in the garden, new will arrive again, but it will weaken the tree...it will drop its leafes again when you take it outside next summer, and expose it to sun...better keep it under glass all the time.

Kind regards Yvonne

Jim,
I was keeping it by my sink near a north facing window. I moved it to my dresser in from of a north facing window. (More light and my cat wouldn't stop eating the leaves) I was watering every two to three days. Airlayer was seperated early summer.

Yvonne,
I am quite embarrassed to say that I might have made a rookie mistake and was not watering properly but let's hope your right.

I have been able to keep leaf drop on my ficus to a minimum, but it involves bringing all of them in earlier in the year and a lot of shuttling. When the nights are getting into the upper 50's, all of them go into the garage for the night and back out in the morning. When the nights are getting into the lower 50's they come in for the winter with artificial light and humidity. Leaf drop is extremely minimal this way, but the trade-off is less time out in the sun. I think it is less stressful than when in the past I kept them outside until the last minute and lost 75% of the leaves after I brought them in. In the Spring I just reverse the process and reintroduce to full sun slowly. They seem more vigorous this way (and so do I, since I use chicken grit in my soil and each pot is quite a load ). The point of all that blathering is that graduated change in environment, and avoiding extremes, significantly reduces stress and leaf loss for me. One benefit to leaf drop, however, is ease of examining branch structure, so take advantage.

Drip trays for humidity really work, and if a north window is all you have some artificial light will make a difference.

I move mine in at 50 degrees once, under 16 hour fluorescents and dont lose anything.

I liken it to a human putting on and taking off a jacket. Except it takes trees longer. One move, less confusing it.

Sorce