I have a Ficus that I bought from IKEA. The booklet said, that the initial shock of moving the tree would cause it to loose some leaves in the first few weeks. But it has lost a lot and yesterday I noticed some needle like bugs in the soil, as well as a flying bug on the tree. the leaves at the top have some new growth, but I was wondering if I should do something about the bugs. could that be fungus on the steam? It was like that when I bought the tree. I don't have a picture of the bugs, unfortunately.

Thanks!

Joe

tubaboy wrote:

I have a Ficus that I bought from IKEA.

A ficus from Ikea has about as much to do with Bonsai as McDonalds has with haute cuisine.

Thanks for the constructive comments. The really helped me with my question and potential problem.

Yeah, well, then don't take your hamburger to a bonsai forum.

The green stuf is algae, probably it has been too wet for a while.
Bugs... I need more info, like shape, size, color. A picture would help.

I bought this particular plant to learn how to care for this type of tree... a long time ago, as a boy, I had been unable to care for more expensive plants, and because I decided to try it again, I figured, learning to cook a hamburger isn't the worst first step in doing more complicated things. Maybe that's not the best plan, but it was the plan and way I chose. But,

As I figured those details were not essential to answer my question, I left them out..

I haven't been able to get a picture of the bugs.. they were small the size of a pen tip.. shaped needle like and they were in the soil.

what can I do about the algea? Just let it dry out?

tubaboy wrote:

I bought this particular plant to learn how to care for this type of tree... a long time ago, as a boy, I had been unable to care for more expensive plants, and because I decided to try it again, I figured, learning to cook a hamburger isn't the worst first step in doing more complicated things.

Fair enough.

I haven't been able to get a picture of the bugs.. they were small the size of a pen tip.. shaped needle like and they were in the soil.

I'm going to have to guess. Could be fungus gnats. This may be caused by the fact that the soil stays too wet. Make sure you let it dry between waterings, care guidelines for Ficus, including watering techniques, can be found on this website. Does the pot have a drainage hole?

It should be possible to brush of the algae with some water and a soft toothbrush, carefully.

Fungus gnat:
Size seems to match, but not really needle shaped... so I'm not sure.

Thanks.

This is not the same bug I saw before. The gnats sound about right.

I was able to get this picture. It isn't very clear, but it might help. It might not appear as much more than a dot on the pencil I was holding.

Do you mean the yellowish/brownish dot? That looks round, not needle-like? Are you sure it is alive, does it move?

That's what I meant. And it did move. This is a different bug. The other things sound like the gnats you were talking about.