11. December 2023

What’s wrong with… – my Fiddle-Leaf Fig?

Lotte Pflanzenexpertin

Ficus lyrata – Fiddle-Leaf Fig

With its large leaves, the Fiddle-Leaf Fig looks really lush. The leaves can grow up to 40 cm long. If the plant is healthy, they are bright green and shiny.

But what’s wrong with that one, Lotte?

 

Ficus corpse

A ficus is almost a must have in every plant collection, so at FYTA we also have a Ficus lyrata... well had. Because after a hot weekend in the winter garden of our office, the poor thing looks like this. Can it be saved?

The FYTA Beam helps

With the FYTA Beam, I first check whether drought stress was the reason for the leaf drop. However, it tells us that the substrate is still very moist, so it can only have been caused by the humidity being far too low, which is not out of the question in a closed winter garden at hot summer temperatures.

So I first remove all the leaves, because they can’t be saved. Then I cut the shoots back until I can see green under the bark. This promises that there is still life in the plant and that it may sprout again.

Until then, I leave the ficus alone, hardly water it and give it a place on our patio where the humidity is higher than indoors.

If you want to prevent the same thing from happening to your Ficus lyrata, make sure the humidity is above 60% and keep it in a bright spot without direct sunlight.

Update

What's that?

Although the ficus is not forming any new shoots at the top of the trunk, a small shoot is emerging from the bottom of the rootstock about three months after the heat disaster. Thanks to the fact that I always kept the rootstock slightly moist, the FYTA team can celebrate a new ficus baby after such a short time. Hooray! Who would have thought that the ficus could still be saved after such hardship...

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