Fiddle-leaf fig Plant Care | Everything You Need To Know

Watering Techniques

So, when it comes to watering your field, you want to make sure that you’re doing it based on the moisture level of your soil. That is very important.

Monitor Moisture Levels

It can’t be based on a schedule. You won’t come back and water every seven days. You’ll water it when the soil, the moisture level of that soil, tells you to.

So, how do you figure that out? Well, you can either get a moisture meter and stick it down in the pot, or you can use your finger and stick it down into your soil. And once the top half of your soil is completely dry, that’s when you’re going to water that fiddle. And when you water it, you’re going to do it nice and easy, slow and steady, around the entire top surface of the soil, so that all the roots in there get an opportunity to pull that moisture in.

Proper Watering Method

Water it until water comes out of the drainage holes and into a base tray. That is important. You just don’t want to pour just a little bit and hope that all those roots get moisture.

You want to make sure that you see that water coming out into that base tray. If that water sits in that base tray for about 10, 15, maybe 30 minutes, that’s fine. But after that, if there’s still water in that base tray, you’re going to take your plant off that base tray, dispose of that runoff water, and then put your plant back on that base tray.

It’s not just the watering of the plant that’s going to be beneficial. Given that this is a tropical plant, you want to kind of mimic that sort of same environment in your home that that plant is used to.

Avoiding Over-Watering and Under-Watering

Watering issues can severely impact the health of your fiddle leaf fig.

Signs of Over-Watering

Over-watering is often indicated by yellowing leaves. If the plant is consistently over-watered, the entire leaf will eventually die and fall off. Over-watering can also lead to root rot, a serious condition that can be detrimental to the plant’s overall health.

Signs of Under-Watering

When your fiddle leaf fig isn’t getting enough water, the edges of the leaves will start to turn crispy brown. Additionally, the foliage may wilt or droop slightly. Unlike over-watering, under-watering is easier to correct. You can trim away the crispy edges, water the plant thoroughly, and it should recover. For more detailed guidelines, check out our latest article on watering houseplants.

Humidity

Humidity is very important when it comes to your Ficus plants. So either adding the humidifier and keeping that going in between, let’s say, 60 to about 70 percent near that plant. Or you can mist your plant once a week, twice a week even, to just make sure that it is getting all that humidity and staying moist and staying vibrant in that space.

So adding humidity will make sure that it can stay a bit more alive. Adding humidity is also a good way to deter any sort of pest. Mealybugs love when your plants are more dry.

So if you keep the humidity a bit higher around that plant, misting it, humidifiers will help keep pests away, but will also keep the life of your plant a bit healthier and a bit more, I would say, shinier and more new growth developing on that plant.

Choosing the Right Soil

So when it comes to soil, you want to make sure that you’re wrapping your roots in something that’s going to help that plant thrive.

Ideal Soil Composition

When it comes to ficus, because it wants to dry up at least halfway, adding things that can help that soil medium dry up faster will be beneficial.Things like perlite, maybe a bit of vermiculite. I like to place a little bit of moss in my soil and have the rest of it be an organic potting mix so it can help keep most of it moist throughout the week and then dry up at a certain point in time so that I can then water it again.

Repotting Your Plant

Repotting is essential when the plant outgrows its current pot.

When to Repot

Always want to repot once you start to see roots coming out of the drainage hole. And when you see that, you’re going to then take your plant and repot it in a pot that is two inches in diameter, larger than the previous pot. That is important.

How to Repot

Once you take it out, you’re going to add some soil at the bottom of your new pot. Then you’re going to break up, gently break up the soil, spread out your roots, place it in your new pot, and then add fresh soil. Fresh soil is important because it can be a way of adding new life to the plants, like nutrients, fertilizer.

Fertilize Your Fiddle Leaf Fig

You should be fertilizing once spring and summer comes about. Using a liquid fertilizer and just using probably half of what the dosage is that they’re asking to use, and just doing that maybe twice a month versus every week is also important.

Routine Maintenance

Regular maintenance ensures your fiddle leaf fig remains healthy and lively.

Rotating the Plant

When it comes to making sure that your plant grows and flourishes and becomes bigger and has even growth, you might  rotate your Fiddle leaf fig every two weeks or once a month. Make sure that every side of that plant has this opportunity in the light so that it can develop and grow. If you decide to never rotate your plants, what you’ll end up seeing is your plant will start leaning towards the light wherever that light is.

Once you rotate it, it’ll start to shift and become more upright versus just leaning to the sides.

Cleaning the Leaves

If you’re seeing any sort of dust or dirt, grime on your foliage, wiping down your leaves once a week, every two weeks is important. It keeps it healthy.

It keeps more light penetrating your foliage. If you remove that layer of dust and when you’re doing this routine maintenance by wiping down your leaves, you’re not only removing that layer of dust, but you’re spending more time with the plant. You’re in there.

Fix Leaf Yellowing Issue

if you do have any leaves that are turning yellow or crispy edges, cut those out. If you have yellowing leaves, you want to remove those yellowing leaves because that that yellowing leaf is still pulling nutrients from your plants.

So cut it off as soon as you can.

Propagating Your Fiddle Leaf Fig

To propagate your fiddle leaf fig, you can start by taking a cut from a section of the plant where the branch is still green or just starting to turn brown. Use sharp shears to make a clean cut. Place the cut end in lukewarm water. Over time, roots will begin to grow from where the cut was made. Once these roots reach four to six inches in length, you can plant the cutting back into the original pot or into a new one.

If you want to encourage your single branch fiddle leaf fig to become more tree-like with multiple branches, there are several methods you can try:

• Natural Development: Provide the plant with brighter light to stimulate new branch growth.
• Top Cutting: Take a cutting from the top of the plant and propagate it. New branches will typically sprout below the last leaf on the cutting.
• Notching: Score the branch above a node or old leaf scar. Over time, a new branch may develop from the score.

#Extra tips: Encouraging Branches

If you want to make your plant’s branch a bit thicker and the base a bit thicker to hold the weight of your plant, you can give it a little shake, maybe once a week, every other week. That kind of tells the plant, the base of that plant, that we got to get thicker. We got to get stronger to hold that weight.

It’s kind of mimicking what would happen outdoors if the wind was kind of blowing it and shifting it to side to side.