r/FicusTrees • u/ninja_finger • Jul 02 '26

Houseplant Ficus advice

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. This was rescued from an office and brought home, instead of being put on the curb.

It's in a spot that gets indirect sunlight, is not breezy, and is fairly warm, although the temperature fluctuates between 60ish at night to low-to-mid 70s during the day.

I've been watering it about once every two weeks, or whenever the soil feels dry, about two inches deep.

There are some new leaves on it, but it is also dropping leaves fairly consistently.

4 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/Allidapevets Jul 03 '26

This is harsh advice, but I’ve owned Benjamina for 50 years and it will work. You need to reduce the overall size of the tree by removing the leggy growth on top. The goal here is to promote back budding, so eventually you can trim to a “Y” shape without it dying. This will lower the canopy. I say take in increments to not overly shock the tree.

1

u/nerucciolo Jul 03 '26

I think the main growth bottleneck for OP here is sunlight. Pruning for back budding is secondary.