What is the condition of your soil and has anyone been spraying anything around in the area. Looks necrotic.

Thanks for the reply. The soil is fair to good. I recently dug a posts hole under the drip line of the tree and that went well - so it is not too hard packed, full of rocks, etc.

I am not aware of any spray, althought we did lose two pom pom plants within 20 feet of this that we suspect may have been from the gardener over fertilzing, but this seemed to be going downhill prior to that.

Many other happy plants around and under this tree, including other ficus trees in the ground less than 20 feet away. The foliage has thinned out to about 50 percent of the original. She just looks very sad

No one can adequately diagnose a tree problem by seeing only a few leaves. When a tree "looks sad" overall, it's likely due to a root and/or soil problem.

If you value the tree, the wise route would be to call a certified arborist for an on-site evaluation.

My dad lost several of his to a soil fungus. Took one, then the next- three in total. Half the plant would die, then the other half, but the whole plant looked sad for a while at first.
Renee

I have a large collection of small ficus and the worst pest is brown scale. If you see bumps on your tree and ants moving up and down - it's scale. You need to control the ants and I use an ant deterrent on the soil. You can also use Tangle Foot on the truck to keep the ants from going up and down. If you spray at the crawler stage you can kill the scale. However I scrap them off when I see them. Scale suck on the plant and ants farm them. Eventually it will weaken a plant enough to kill it.

When you see necrosis of the leaf edges it is usually a toxin in the soil. In your case I think it must have been applied to the soil, it could even be the result of a leaking pipe underground, and if you can not find out what it is yourself I think it worth spending the $100 for a ISA arborist to diagnose the problem. Al