Hi & welcome! To what other plants are you comparing?

Variegated plants are less enthusiastic than their green counterparts, so that might be part of it. How long since you divided the plants up and put the (Ficus elastic ?) in it's own pot. Plants need to be making more energy/food than they use. When they do, they grow - when they don't, they're in decline. Your plant might be growing below the soil because it won't put on top growth until it has the root system to support the extra growth, so that's one possibility. Tight roots in the original root mass is a possibility, as would be low fertility. The usual suspect is poor root health, most often due to over-watering. You need to allow the soil to become quite, but not completely, dry before you offer more water. Light is another issue. What kind of light is it getting? It wants very bright indirect light indoors and dappled or open shade outdoors.

Al

Ficus require tropical temperatures and sun to grow. we are talking temperatures between 85-90 F. .)by day and mild conditions at night (above 70F.). Also, your sunlight is probably inadequate for new growth. As long as the pot is size appropriate,it's in good sun, the potting medium is good, it get fertilized, etc., it will grow. Though I agree one reason I generally avoid variegation is the plants tend to be less robust as stated above. Is it possible to move it outside for the season?

That's fair. My house is typically 76-79 degrees during the summer, so perhaps temperatures are too low.

I think more light is probably the answer. My own variegated rubber tree (which sits near a southern window) always puts on a flush of growth with the start of longer days in the spring. While it may not be as robust as the non-variegated Ficus elastica, I still consider the variegated F. elastica to be a robust plant that should be showing at least some growth during the warm season.

If you really want to give it a kick in the butt, put it outdoors for the summer (assuming you live in a place with warm, sunny weather right now and can keep it watered while it's out there).

You may want to try to acclimate it to full sun gradually to try to prevent the leaves that are accustomed to indoor-light from burning, but my experience was that the plant quickly adapted to the extra sun, grew very quickly, and soaked up as much sun as it could get. In northern latitudes, at least, I don't think you can ever give a Ficus elastica too much sunlight.

I stopped putting mine outdoors just because I was paranoid about bugs - but many people just clean, spray, and repot their plants before bringing them indoors in the fall as protection against bugs.

That any plant likes to be snug in the pot is a horticultural myth. No plant likes to be snug in the pot because once a plant gets to about the point where the root/soil mass can be lifted from the pot intact, growth and vitality are being limited by root congestion.

Al

Hello again. :)

I was going to edit the post title to mention that this post is an update, but I couldn't figure out how. Womp, womp, womp.

As per some advice received here, I put my rubber tree in my front lawn (facing east) under our pear tree. In the past couple of weeks it's already sprouted two healthy new leaves and it looks like a third one is coming soon. Hopefully when winter comes around, a supplemental grow light in my house will help keep it happy during the colder days.

Thanks for all the advice!

Oh yeah - I never even thought about that until you mentioned it. I guess the Houzz (house) wants to be sure we stay on topic. ;-)

If you REALLY want to see it take off, move it into full sun. Do it on a cloudy day or when 2-3 days of intermittent sun is expected.

Al

Vanessa that rubber tree is Gorgeous!

Hello.

How are you?

Al

is the variegated version okay in full sun?? I thought the leaves might burn.

My personal experience with variegated ficus is limited because variegated plants arent as robust as their all green counterparts. I do have a F benjamina "variegata" forest planting that's about 15 years old and has never shown any hint of aversion to full sun here in MI.

You probably already know that most plants conditioned to a low light site will show symptoms of sunburn (photo oxidation) if not conditioned gradually.

Light Acclimatization

The degree to which a leaf can 'acclimate' to changes in photo load is limited. IOW, you can't expect a leaf that emerged under a full sun light load to acclimate to light levels in a dim corner, any more than you can expect a leaf that emerged in a dim corner to acclimate to a full sun site; this, no matter how long you allow for acclimatization. Too, the plant's ability to adapt to higher light loads is greater than its ability to adapt to lesser light loads.

Using a 1-10 numerical example (1 is low, 10 is high light) to illustrate: If a leaf emerges where the light level is measured at 5 units, it's range of adjustment might only be 3.5 on the low side, but 8 to 8.5 on the high side.

Al