This is my mother's plant from southern Ohio, zone 6A-6B (near the line). In the summer she kept it on her roofed front porch. In the winter it was by sliding doors, facing west. She had it in regular potting soil (not good), but her pot was free draining with lots of holes in the bottom (very good). Mom gave it to me because it never bloomed and I swear, it bloomed a month later! I've had leaves like on your plant when it was struggling. Usually it needed a repot to develop better roots. Does your pot have drainage holes? I agree with Rina that the soil may be holding too much water and compromising the roots.

Ever since I pulled out a rose with DEFINITE symptoms -- 'Yellow Sweetheart, Climbing' showing red new growth is fine, but when that new growth is suddenly STUDDED with prickles, you know something's terribly wrong, because this rose is "thornless" -- I examine my roses pretty much daily. When I see growth like this, I mentally imagine taking a picture in B&W -- does it still look weird? Are the leaves taking on normal shape? It still freaks me out, knowing RRD is in my area. I think it's inevitable that it'll hit me again. But when I see "not obviously RRD" new growth like this, I wait a few days to see if it greens up. So far this year, it all has, or is about to. Another thing I am noticing this year -- many cases of multiple shoots coming from the same area. Why am I not freaking out about this? Because what is coming out looks normal, albeit "enthusiastic". Generally, the first bud to emerge is the central bud -- the two side buds are "suppressed" by the central bud being in an active growth phase. But then we had that week of nights dipping into the mid 20s after over a month's worth of leafing out. Many of those central buds were damaged -- some growth even melted away entirely. That meant the side buds were no longer being 'suppressed", and they started to grow. In some cases, the central bud's growth recovered, and the resulting "three shoots from one point" looks scary now. But as I said, the shoots coming out look normal -- it's just that there are more than the "normal number" because of that late freeze. :-) ~Christopher

Thank you! I wouldn't have expected it to be too wet, as I've elevated the inner pot so that no perched water will be left in the soil. But perhaps it's just not draining quickly enough, or I've been watering too often as well, despite trying not to. I will definitely read the long post, I love learning about this stuff (just started reading the beginners post by tapla a little further down). I wanted to give my fiddle leaf fig the 511 mix about a year ago, but found it challenging to find the "ingredients" here in Sweden. Perhaps I just don't know what I'm looking after in Swedish terms. I'll look into it again though. Anyway, enough rambling. Thank you for your help! I had no idea the roots could go searching for more air, and now that I know the cause I'll try to fix it!

So this (what I think is mold) appeared on the surface of my substrate at just around the time of germination. I used a dome to germinate the seeds directly on to the grow medium. This is in a kratky-esque type of system. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.