(Guy McCusker) held forth in
om:

I know very little about horticulture in general. I would be
very
grateful for any advice you can offer!

I have a "supermarket" bonsai Ficus Benjamina which does not
seem at
all well. It lives on a window sill in a decent amount of
light, in a
centrally heated house. It will be a bit chilly in that
window
overnight, though.

The main symptoms a

- it regularly drops leaves and has rather few new shoots

- the leaves have a brown, rusty appearance and are curling
up

- the surface soil never seems to dry out despite the plant
being
placed in a centrally-heated house

Am I watering too much? Too little? Or is the soil perhaps
not
well-drained enough?

Any suggestions would be gratefully appreciated.

Many thanks,

Guy.

Depending on where you are on this world, winter conditions of
low light
and lower temperatures, even in the house, will cause leaf
drop. I have a
couple of ficus B.s and it happens every year. Some worse than
others.
You might want to check just how low the temp gets where the
plant is
sitting. Near the window it might be getting quite a bit colder
than
elsewhere in the room. It is a tropocal plant and cannot
tolerate low
temperatures. I don't know how much impact spider mites have on
ficus but
my other plants have them and I spray the ficus also to help
keep the
population down.


To add to this: If the soil does not dry out, STOP WATERING.

If the soil has been soggy for a long time (2 weeks or more),
REPOT into free-draining bonsai soil, and do it ASAP, even though
this is a poor time to repot a ficus. It is likely to have (or
be developing) root rot, and that will kill it more surely than
an out-of-season repotting.

Check it for scale.

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - Only to the
white man was nature a wilderness -- Luther Standing Bear
(Ogallala Sioux Chief)

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