[Arid_gardener] Watering a Ficus nitida

[Judy]

I just read your article on the website:
"Ficus nitida losing leaves during summer" dated Thu, 21 Nov 2002 14:31:51 -0700.
I also read the AZ Master Gardner Manual on watering plants, which seems to general to help me much
with my current problem.

My Ficus nitida is 3 years old, has a western exposure,  and has been doing quite well until the past few days when it suddenly lost most of it's leaves.  It is served by 2 different drip systems, and I discovered that one of them had accidentally been turned off, possibly for a couple of weeks, so I've done an emergency watering (actually flooding) and treated it with 1 ounce of "Superthrive" as recommended by my nursery. 

My problem now is trying to figure out how much water to give it on a regular basis.  I want to give it enough  but I don't want to drown it and I'm not going to be around later in the summer to check it regularly with the probe.  I've kept stones over the surface of the bowl to help conserve moisture.

I measured how much water each dripper runs per hour and was astounded to find that one of the systems delivers 20 gal/hour and I've been running it for 4 hours every 5 days. The system that had been turned off delivers 28 gal/hour and I had been running it for 1 hour once a week. It seems to me that a bit over 108 gallons per week might be excessive.  What is your opinion?
Thanks for your reply.
Judy Clews
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