I have an indoor fig tree that hangs out in a sunny south window. It has been there for almost a year now. I re potted it in august and gave it some fertilizer and it grew amazingly. On October 17th I noticed small webs on the tree and saw small white spiders crawling around so I gave the tree a shower and sprayed it with Bonide Horticultural spray (in a picture) two days in a row. Only four leaves had these spiders. I had a feeling that they were spider mites and was advised to spray it with water a few times too so I did. The third day I noticed that the leaves turned brown where it drips off of them and assumed it was the bonide. I also noticed a small empty web nest and a single predatory house spider on the plant (maybe they were just baby spiders?). I have been watering the plant the same as always (every other day) Now the bottom leaves and some of the large leaves are brown spotted and turning brown/yellow and the stem is turning splotchy red/brown which is the same color as the mature bark. Baby leaves are dropping as well. We are also getting less sun, because its been very cloudy. What is happening to my tree? Is it the bonide shock? lack of sun? Is this tree starting to die? I have been taking care of it the same way as always, even at the time it grew like mad. Let me know what's wrong. I hope it is okay, I live in central Wisconsin.
(the tree was temporarily moved for the pictures)
This message was edited Nov 1, 2013 9:21 PM
Brown turkey fig dying! help!
The instructions on the Bonide All Seasons Oil bottle state "Important: do not spray again with oil for at least a month", so that may be your first problem.
The close up pictures also show signs of edema which is caused by the plant taking up too much water at which point the cells in the leaf start to burst. You may want to skip another day or two on the waterings.
Lastly, I'm curious about the fertilizer you used. Fertilizers that contain way too much nitrogen (I'm looking at you Miracle Gro) can force a plant to put on lots of lovely growth that they really never should have made, especially when they should have been making good roots to support themselves instead.
The good news is it doesn't look like it's dying. It just looks a little stressed.
Ficus carica is a deciduous plant. no matter what you do, it will lose all of its leaves in fall and this is the time to let up almost completely on watering. it looks to be a fairly large plant and i would say no more than a once a month watering will suffice.
you don't say what size pot it was in and what size you bumped it up to but if there was a good sized jump in pots, then the plant definitely needs time to make roots to fill the pot. adding water to soil with no roots to take it up will cause the roots you do have to rot.
sounds like fall leaf drop to me as well.
remember to place it in a large spot where it can spread out when you plant it. they get VERY large here in florida.
yours looks nice and healthy!
My fig tree grew a ton in the pot, but it has dropped its leaves again, however I just think it's going dormant, the other ones are as well at the stores I notice. I still haven't gotten any figs from it yet, I hope soon. This one is the opposite of my first one, which only produced figs and not many leaves.
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