I have a baby variegated fig (got it as a "mystery" plant in a bundle) please give me all the advice you have for figs! I have had 3 new leaves however those have fallen off over the last week & now the big 3 leaves it came with have also wilted & fallen off overnight *it is in a "death" spongy plug since it is a nursery plant. pics of my poor guy included 😔
it came with all the markings on the leaves, but not the yellowish discoloration
1 gilla
When bringing new plants home, I tend not to repot straight away and just let it acclimate for a few weeks to its new environment. But general rule is if the root ball is small, the pot should be pretty small too, sizing up when you repot as the plant grows. When you repotted, how did the roots look? Or are they still tucked away inside the ‘plug’ (btw do you mean peat substrate? Not sure what the plug is). If it’s still in plug form you could try soaking it in water for 15-30 mins to soften the substrate and make it easier to remove. This will give you a chance to look at the roots. If things are squishy in there, use a clean pair of snips (clean with isopropyl alcohol) to cut those bits off. If there are no good roots, I would actually be putting this baby in a prop box with a grow light over it. Or you could try water propagation. Either way, ficuses need strong light to thrive - I would recommend a good quality grow light with a decent PPFD. Hope that helps as a starting point!
0 gillningar yes very helpful!! to answer your questions, the roots were all inside the plug (i'm new, so don't know all the names lol it's spongy, not mesh, so it may be what you're talking about) but I did check on them earlier and they have grown out the bottom and sides of it well, quite a bit. I let it sit for about a month before i repotted- the size is the same but i put it in a clear pot so I could see the roots. It gets a bunch of indirect sunlight in my dining room and i have some grow lightbulbs in my dining room light fixture that i will flip on in the evening! my other plants in there are doing very well, this one is just struggling! hoping it will continue to grow, but if not I will have to try propagating! I wasn't sure if I could since it was so small
0 gillningar Great news about the roots! What other plants is this little guy sharing his space with? The thing I would be checking is whether the light requirements would be the same for all the plants. If it were me I would have this planty receive light from a grow light bulb 12 hrs per day during the day. And place it with other plants that have similar stronger lighting requirements eg bird of paradise or schefflera.
1 gilla I have a variety. some sit close to the window like my bonsai, water props, and dieffenbachia and the fig sits beside my record player with my alocasia melo! my birthday is this next week and i'm on the hunt for a bird of paradise and schefflera both so taking this as a sign my fig needs friends 😂
0 gillningar Definitely a sign! They will all love being under a good grow bulb together! I would aim for something around 30W with these :) Best of luck!
0 gillningar thank you so much for your help!!!
1 gilla
OMG I hate those things, before I knew what they were a I had a flamingo plant and she’d be beautiful one day and the next at sick so I’d do some research fix what it could be and man she’d seem to get better, well in the end she just had me extremely stressed and I didn’t want to give up but she was fine so I took her apart and saw the death plug, the whole time me being a newb thought it was a part of that plants particular type of root system…. DUH 🙄!! I repot ALL my plants as sun as I get them home and that’s the first thing I do is check for those or even a couple. Twice, I have found rubber bands on the roots. Anyhow they are just no good at all!! Sry 😔
0 gillningar the roots have grown really well out of it, but now i'm wondering if (since its stressed already) i take it out of the plug or leave it since it is already stressed out 😂😅
0 gillningarWhether you are ficus will survive I could not say, but I have one like it and it seems to be doing okay. I have learned that this ficus variety along with some others are easily stressed and leaf drop is the first thing that happens. Moving them from one environment to another is stressful for them. Most of my plants love it when I move them outside in the summer but this year I decided to leave my sweetheart ficus stay put in the house so that I wouldn't have to change its environment moving it to the outside and then moving it back in in the fall. I think it has been happier.
1 gilla i've heard that! I've left it in the same spot since it got out of quarantine about a month- month and a half ago! I'm fingers crossed it can be saved
0 gillningar