LOL popcorn fart,
@Vance Wood. I water this tree every day, and once summer gets real hot and dry out here I water twice daily. I guess the tree being too dry is a possibility, but I've got to believe there's a different explanation. The situation is as
@MHBonsai suggests, that the new leaves are growing in yellow rather than drying out and turning yellow. I'll concede that the leaves look shriveled and crispy in the first photo I posted, but the yellow leaves are as supple as any ordinary new growth. Here's a photo to try to demonstrate:
I'm folding the leaf in attempt to show that....well, it folds rather than breaks like a potato chip.
@MHBonsai, here are some additional photos as you've suggested are needed. Hopefully these give you a better idea of what's going on:
This one just showing some of the yellow new growth.
Different angle showing new yellow growth. In this photo and the one above, you can see a few things: 1) lots of yellow growth, but also some older green leaves in the background; 2) a decent number of new growth tips; 3) some of the yellow leaves are starting to green up a bit again, almost looking like a variegated cultivar. This greening up has largely occurred in the last couple days since I moved it to the shadier side of the yard.
This is the longest branch on the tree, showing that the older leaves here are green.
Here's a substrate detail
In its past life, this tree was a Home Depot braided topiary thing that I bought on a lark sometime last year to trunk chop and see if I couldn't get it to push some buds real low. Knowing Benjamina's propensity for dieback, I chopped it probably eight inches above the soil line hoping there would still be enough tree beneath the dieback that would survive. And, that's exactly what happened. The top six inches of the tree died back, it pushed some buds from the lowest two inches of trunk, and that's what you see in the photos above.
The photos below are what became of the top of the tree that I chopped off. Stuck it into some succulent soil and it rooted out, and then I repotted it back in February at the same time I repotted the one above (into the same substrate mix). Somewhat interestingly, while it's showing some some of the same yellow new growth as the other tree, you'll see that it's also got way more green growth and generally seems much more vigorous. At first this seems sort of counter intuitive, but I suspect it's because it's got more foliage for energy production than the bottom of the tree did.
I know this is a lot of work in a short period of time, but given ficus' ability to deal with severe insults (and the fact that they generally grow like weeds here in LA) I felt confident the tree could handle it without succumbing to Ficodeath (another great term,
@Vance Wood). The tree seems weak, but it also doesn't seem to be dying, but rather trying real hard to live.
