Is my Ficus dead???

house

I am a beginner at this. I need some advice. I came back from vacation, and the person I had watching my Ficus Kiki said it looked like it was dieing. The leaves are all brown and shrivled up. I thought I heard at one time that in early Spring the leaves will do this. My question is, are the leaves supposed to do this? If so, am I suppose to take them off, or leave them fall off?

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Jay

Hi there. This is just one novices experience. I have a few Ficus, various varieties. Last winter due to no fault but my own, all of my ficus started to drop their leaves. Of course this is not a good thing. For a ficus to loose a leaf or two now and then is normal...to loose all the leaves is not good. The trees were not dead. I checked the tree by doing a small scratch into the bark...showing green, .... green....life!

I removed all the brown leaves, on some trees this was all the leaves. I then treated the trees with care... not overwatering (remember...no leaves means the tree is using less water). Do not fertilize...keep warm if possible and wait. It took a few weeks for most of the trees to show new life. Some of the trees are still not in leaf (and may not ever). And yes, I did have to cut back some dead branches, but the trees live. You should be able to do the same! Patience..... you can always take the tree to be dead...but wait.... there is no rush!

__________________
A Bonsai student living with his trees at N 44.37 W 77.49...
Think before you act... then think again... no good comes from rushing

juliet-of-oz

hi there

last summer my willow leaf fig dropped all its leaves - i had never seen this before either. I kept a look out but didnt see any problems, each time i scratched the bark the tree was still green, the branches didnt die back at all but it didnt grow any shoots.

Finnally i hit it with a dose of white-oil (spray) and out came all these tiny red spiders...little monsters....i hadnt seen them.

a week or so later the tree budded up and now has all its leaves back....

Maybe your fig has bugs....

Jules

Moni

Ficus can be very touchy about being moved, etc. When they are upset, they will often drop their leaves but they come back. Patience is a virtue, here.
However, they are also susceptible to spider mites (as one of you just found out) and scale. You need to look at the plant closely to see whether there is a pest problem or not. Hold a white piece of paper under the tree and shake it a little bit. If black specks show up on the paper, rub your hand over them. If you end up with red streaks, you have spider mites.
Scales look like little bumps on the tree. Not very hard to see and they can be anywhere from white to dark brown.
Overwatering can also make the leaves of ficus fall off, so you must check and make sure that you haven't been doing that, too. Take the plant out of the pot, if need be, and make sure the roots are still healthy looking.
Moni