My Ficus bonsai has been doing great for the past few weeks, especially after the spider mite incident. It has been outside for quite a while and I've been watering and misting it everyday from the constant heat (it goes from 70-80 degrees). Around 4 days ago though some spots began to appear on random leaves for no apparent reason. It didn't look like leaf drop to me, and now the spots have increased a bit and spread. So I'm wondering if anyone knows what it is before I do anything. I have a systemic for hard situations if it's something real bad.
[img]https://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y74/alice12/DSCN1148.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y74/alice12/DSCN1150.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y74/alice12/DSCN1151.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y74/alice12/DSCN1149.jpg[/img]
Looks like the mist you've been spraying you're tree with is burning it. When you spray the tree, the droplets gather on the surface causing it to burn. What happens is, the water droplets reflect to much sun onto the leaf causing it to overheat and literaly boil away the water in that part. To stop this, you simply need not spray it. I have had ficuses out on 90 F+ days where it was very dry, and it suffered no ill-effects.
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arboricola
- Senior Member
- Posts: 224
- Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2007 5:07 pm
- Location: Minnesota zone 4
Alaric;
First, move your tree to a location that gets no direct sunlight. Ficus do very well in strong indirect light.
Allow the soil to go almost dry before you water. Ficus do not like damp wet soil. I let mine go almost bone dry before I water.
Go ahead and remove the spotted leaves as they will not recover.
Phil...
First, move your tree to a location that gets no direct sunlight. Ficus do very well in strong indirect light.
Allow the soil to go almost dry before you water. Ficus do not like damp wet soil. I let mine go almost bone dry before I water.
Go ahead and remove the spotted leaves as they will not recover.
Phil...
I've kept it indoors with no direct sunlight for awhile, and have watered it every 2 days or so once it's dry. It's still not getting better, and it's been more than 10 days. Leaves still spotting, some turn yellow or brown and fall, not to mention it's lost a lot already.
Any ideas what else it could be?
Any ideas what else it could be?
It seems your ficus has got ginseng rot (I think this disease is common enough in Ginseng Ficus culture that someone should make a sticky on it so I don't have to refer back to other treads to retrieve the information on it). Anyway, here is the information about it I know. What will happen is (although I beleve it is related to letting the soil dry out), a fungi (that is, from my expiriance, harmfull only to genseng variaties, probably because almost all the plant consists of 'root') will invade the roots of the tree. It then decays all the vascular tissues on the inside of the root. The infection stops at the trunk or branches, but the plant is no longer able to obtain water, because the roots have been killed. The plant then, for lack of water, looses its leafs, and dies. Once it strikes a root, it is best to amputate it. One can tell if a root is infected due to a shived, wrinkled appearance, and a rather soft feel to it rather than a smooth, succulent look and normal firmness. However, if the fungi infects all the roots, it is usualy too late. This fungi is, from my experiance, little known because I have never seen it mentioned anywere.
It has lost all its leaves; only the trunk remains because the dog got it and chew all its branches off after it lost its leaves. I keep it indoor at a window and water it 2 or 3 times a week. Now I placed it at an elevated place so the dog does not reach it.The trunk looks fine but is there anyway I can save it if it's not dead yet?..please help