Re: Beginner question: unhappy ficus benjamina

> 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.

For what it's worth I have a Ficus sitting in a window and is very happy.
The sole light available is only from this window (other than when I enter
the room of an evening). The Window is south facing and probably chilly at
night. However I am no plant so cant comment to much on it's temperate
status at night or day when the Sun don't shine at this time of year. I dont
have thermometer at the window.

The plant gets the same amount of heat from the indoors day and night at
whatever temperature it happens to be. Likely to be below 68 F (20C) as I
hate to much heat. Even less *when* the window is open during the day. The
window area is not *concealed* of an evening.

> The main symptoms are:
>
>  - it regularly drops leaves and has rather few new shoots

Precisely what mine happened to do when it was not happy with the given
position/light I originally gave it (sat upon a table).

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

I have some of these and expect a few to die but I dont worry as now since a
good crop back and placement at a south facing window it is doing fine.

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

Err how often are you watering it? I let mine appear dry before watering.
Normally about 5 days.

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

If the water escapes out of the bottom quite rapidly when you water it is
sufficiently drained.

I suppose it's possible the root system is damaged and therefore the uptake
of water is minimal. However in a centrally heated house the soil MUST dry
out at some stage if you leave it long enough between watering.


Steve