At the restaurant where I work there is a four-foot ficus that is looking really rough. I think it spent some time sited in a windowless room above a very hot spotlight placed in the floor. In other words, completely in the dark when the restaurant was closed, or with hot light shining on the leaves from below for several hours a day. I don't know the plant's history, just that it was in this situation for a perhaps a couple of weeks.
Now the tree has dropped most of its leaves and I think the rest will drop very soon. The leaves look either burned brown, turned very pale yellow, or are still green. Almost all are dry or crispy dry. The plant is also in a pot with no soil, only something like small red porous stones (what I would normally think of as a decorative gravel).
The owner of the restaurant moved the plant into the dining room by a full length window (it is early spring in Germany, temperatures outside still around freezing, sun from 7am to 6pm). I scrapped a centimeter of bark off the trunk to see that the plant is still alive.
So, will this plant survive? If I repot into potting soil, and leave it by the window? Even if all the leaves fall off? Is it beneficial at all to cut some of the twigs/branches to reshape it before it leafs out again? (It is lopsided.) If all the leaves do fall off, how long would it take before it recovered? There are other ficus in the dining room, all looking great - but none of those had to deal with the hot spotlight.
Many thanks for your insight!
-
Gnome
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 5122
- Joined: Wed Jul 05, 2006 12:17 am
- Location: Western PA USDA Zone 6A
Kushla,
I assume that the plant has been well watered since the problem was noted and the plant was moved. Other than that there is not much to do except maintain it in favorable conditions and wait. I don't think that re-potting right now would be such a good idea. The coarse soil was chosen deliberately to ensure drainage and re-potting a stressed tree can be problematic. Pruning too can wait, once it leafs out you will know better what parts can be removed.
Read this for tips on watering.
https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1479
Norm
I assume that the plant has been well watered since the problem was noted and the plant was moved. Other than that there is not much to do except maintain it in favorable conditions and wait. I don't think that re-potting right now would be such a good idea. The coarse soil was chosen deliberately to ensure drainage and re-potting a stressed tree can be problematic. Pruning too can wait, once it leafs out you will know better what parts can be removed.
Read this for tips on watering.
https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1479
Norm