Fiddle Leaf Fig FLF Droopy after 5-1-1 soil repot - will it make it?
Nicole
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
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Nicole
6 years agoRelated Discussions
Fiddle Leaf Fig Recovery (Post Repot)
Comments (66)Ficus tends to tolerate root conditions better than most plants. I've seen plants that had been growing in 2 or 3 gallon pots so long there was only a cup or two of soil left, all the rest having gassed off over time and the near solid tangle of roots pressed into service as the root's only home. Almost always, trees like that are circling the drain. Sometimes, when the additional stress of repotting is imposed on plants so lacking in vitality, it's is enough to separate them from their tenuous hold on life, but often they can be turned around very quickly if the grower has a reasonable plan. I'm sure your plant is no where near as far gone as what I described, which is a good reason to be quite unconcerned about your trees viability for the next half year or so. As long as you don't over-water, you should be fine. So, start actually monitoring the soil's moisture levels and only water when the soil first becomes dry, or immediately before. If you're going to continue to water in sips to avoid over-watering, and that leaves you concerned about a high level of salts in the soil, flush the soil thoroughly the next time it needs water and maybe every 6th watering after that. It would be a good idea to fertilize immediately after every flushing. If after flushing your soil gets so soggy you're worried about the impact on root health/function, there are ways to avoid that. In fact, there are an untold number of tips and tricks that will have you at green thumb status in no time, if you have the time to do some reading and assemble the pieces of the puzzle. This link has info that should provide the largest single step forward you can take as a container gardener. Al...See MoreFiddle Leaf Fig- repotting or potting up?
Comments (32)Some things to consider: * I don't know what USDA zone you're in, but your plant is right next to the radiator. As the radiator warms the room air, the relative humidity of the newly warmed air drops precipitously, so much so that the air becomes drier than the air in the Sahara Desert ...... and this holds true even if you have a humidifier in the room. So that's a problem. * Your plant is in a cache pot. If you're not emptying the cache pot every time you water, your plant is sitting in the salt-laden effluent (waste water) that exits the drain hole. This is a problem on several fronts. It causes soil saturation that leads to drought stress; it causes an increase in dissolved solids (salts) that makes water uptake and movement throughout the plant difficult; it raises media pH; and it compounds the low relative humidity issue in the immediate vicinity of the radiator. At a minimum, your plant's pot should sit above any effluent collecting in the cache pot. * Dave asked, "How often and how much are you watering? How are you insuring its time to water?" The question is so important it's worthy of repeating, so I'll ask that you answer, too; and, I suggest you read about using a "tell" to "tell" you when it's time to water. More on that below. * The symptoms aren't consistent with what minor stress might be associated with a move. Generally, leaf loss due to a new home is related only to the leaf loss that might occur as a result of diminished photo load (light intensity, or in some cases - duration of exposure), though a move during cold weather can be immediately damaging such that leaf loss might occur within 1-2 weeks. Low temps and especially sudden exposure to cold drafts often causes leaf loss within a week or two, but usually leaves are still green when they fall - unless they showed necrotic areas before exposure to chill. This should be helpful (click link). Using a 'tell' Over-watering saps vitality and is one of the most common plant assassins, so learning to avoid it is worth the small effort. Plants make and store their own energy source – photosynthate - (sugar/glucose). Functioning roots need energy to drive their metabolic processes, and in order to get it, they use oxygen to burn (oxidize) their food. From this, we can see that terrestrial plants need air (oxygen) in the soil to drive root function. Many off-the-shelf soils hold too much water and not enough air to support good root health, which is a prerequisite to a healthy plant. Watering in small sips leads to a build-up of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil, which limits a plant's ability to absorb water – so watering in sips simply moves us to the other horn of a dilemma. It creates another problem that requires resolution. Better, would be to simply adopt a soil that drains well enough to allow watering to beyond the saturation point, so we're flushing the soil of accumulating dissolved solids whenever we water; this, w/o the plant being forced to pay a tax in the form of reduced vitality, due to prolong periods of soil saturation. Sometimes, though, that's not a course we can immediately steer, which makes controlling how often we water a very important factor. In many cases, we can judge whether or not a planting needs watering by hefting the pot. This is especially true if the pot is made from light material, like plastic, but doesn't work (as) well when the pot is made from heavier material, like clay, or when the size/weight of the pot precludes grabbing it with one hand to judge its weight and gauge the need for water. Fingers stuck an inch or two into the soil work ok for shallow pots, but not for deep pots. Deep pots might have 3 or more inches of soil that feels totally dry, while the lower several inches of the soil is 100% saturated. Obviously, the lack of oxygen in the root zone situation can wreak havoc with root health and cause the loss of a very notable measure of your plant's potential. Inexpensive watering meters don't even measure moisture levels, they measure electrical conductivity. Clean the tip and insert it into a cup of distilled water and witness the fact it reads 'DRY'. One of the most reliable methods of checking a planting's need for water is using a 'tell'. You can use a bamboo skewer in a pinch, but a wooden dowel rod of about 5/16” (75-85mm) would work better. They usually come 48” (120cm) long and can usually be cut in half and serve as a pair. Sharpen all 4 ends in a pencil sharpener and slightly blunt the tip so it's about the diameter of the head on a straight pin. Push the wooden tell deep into the soil. Don't worry, it won't harm the root system. If the plant is quite root-bound, you might need to try several places until you find one where you can push it all the way to the pot's bottom. Leave it a few seconds, then withdraw it and inspect the tip for moisture. For most plantings, withhold water until the tell comes out dry or nearly so. If you see signs of wilting, adjust the interval between waterings so drought stress isn't a recurring issue. Al...See MoreFicus seems to be dying after root trim and repot in sorta 5-1-1
Comments (10)As far as too-dry roots, should I have just sprayed them more? Or should I have pruned less off the roots in the first place, and maybe kept some of the soil around them? They didn't have all that much mass, and I did wonder about that. My husband kept telling me, don't cut its roots! Even if you use a soil that allows you to use a much larger pot than you could use (effectively) when using a water-retentive medium, a ficus will usually colonize the soil to the degree the root/soil mass can be lifted from the pot intact - so it doesn't fall apart when you pull it from the pot. That's how I judge when a plant would benefit from a repot ..... but I'm using a high quality medium. I said that so I can say, if it's been more than a year in the same pot and the soil wasn't fully colonized by roots, there's something amiss. The plants might be reacting adversely to one or more of your soil's ingredients, or to how it's structured. In container media, that there is nothing phytotoxic (poison to plants) in the soil and how favorably (to the plant) the soil is structured are the most important considerations. It's not the soil's job to provide nutrition, that's your/our job. The soil's job is to provide a ratio of water to air that doesn't prove limiting to the plant, and it's better for the plant if you err on the side of more aeration than needed than more water than needed. The former is only limiting if you can't keep up with the plant's water needs. The later is a limitation any time you water appropriately - to beyond the point of saturation. This is a ficus repot of a F benjamina v "Too Little": After most of the soil has been removed: After all the root work was done. Note I kept only fine roots, the workhorses that do the lion's share of the heavy lifting: Repot completed - 90% of the top (branches and foliage) removed. It's pretty apparent I'm not too bashful about removing huge %s of roots, and the only trees I've ever tented were junipers of one species that I had grafted Shimpaku juniper (a variety of chinensis) branches to. I often tent hard to root cuttings, however. Even though conventional "wisdom" says you shouldn't prune the top of the plant to balance the volume of roots to shoots, those of us who collect trees in leaf from the wild or transplant/repot trees in leaf know it's foolish to think one size fits all. It's very often requisite that a significant fraction of the top be removed if the root system is weak or you judge it insufficient to support the top mass. After a few repots, you'll get better at making that judgment. The kitty litter contains *only* bentonite clay, and NOT clumping, NOT scented. Keeps its form when soaked, frozen, and thawed. OK, good. Was there a lot of dust in it? Fine bentonite forms a slippery, slimey paste that expands when it gets wet. I use it in Kokedama and in the dams that must be built to hold soil on top of tree plantings on flat stone slabs Al, I would feel very good about pruning. I don't see buds, but the tree-lets were in good shape and putting out new leaves before...before I tried to help them. Be patient. You can always take it off (branches) - harder to put it back on. Questions: --Are you talking about topping them above a branch? Just saying that's something you COULD do if you like - not a suggestion, just an observation. I do it all the time on very large plants. Another "story". Imagine how tall this tree was when I chopped it back. Does it look like a bonsai? No? Much better - right? No? this spring after repotting into training pot: Taken last Fri as it comes into leaf: Won't that get me two shoots/trunks at each cut, or a funny joint? No. The top branch becomes the new leader and the branch below it gets restrained. You'll prune it so it's growing horizontally. Changing a branch's position from vertical to horizontal also significantly changes the amount of energy that flows into that branch. The tree will always pay more attention to the branches growing vertically. Would I choose one branch, wire it up straighter, and remove the other? See what I just offered. Will that joint be strong enough? ;-) This is a tree in a put, you're not going to hang a tire swing off the branches or a chainfall so you can use it to hoist cars. It'll be fine. --Cut back a third in height? More? Whatever you like, but wait until the tree recovers. For now, just prune the branches. I can help guide you in that process. --If I take off the slender little twigs and actual branches that now go the wrong direction, will the trunk put out completely new growth from old wood? Yes. There are already dormant buds immediately distal to the point where every leaf that was ever on the tree was attached ...... and if that's not enough, the tree will form adventitious buds at random if it's healthy and really likes it's growing conditions. It seems like it might.... You're right. --Would it be better to repot it (them) into a different soil or is it too late? I don't have a good sense about what kind of job your soil will do. I'm not at all a fan of coir. Every experiment I ever did with it ended up with the plants in coir or CHCs faring nowhere as well as plants in pine bark and/or peat. Even in view of the fact I was using appropriate work-arounds for several of coir's shortcomings. This the soil mix I made today, which I could use tomorrow to repot. I was attempting to come *closer* to 5-1-1 but with some Turface added: There was no image. It would be great if you could come up with something that resembles one of these, or even a combination: [5 parts?] 3 cf Gro-well Soil Conditioner (composted forest product, sure looks like the composted pine fines photos to me...at least closer than coir???) [1 part?] 4 gallons Perlite [1/2 part?] 2 gallons of coir (peat moss substitute? ...feels similar to peat moss in texture...and that isn't very large proportion of it...) [1/2 part?] 2 gallons of MiracleGro Potting Mix (peat moss substitute) 2 C Osmocote 5 small handfuls of gypsum (~1/2 C?) [2 parts?] ~1 cf Turface MVP If you think you have a medium that drains reasonably well and will be adequately aerated if we get rid of the perched water, using ballast can make a very large difference by nearly eliminating all saturated soil with as very simple trick of science. This explains how it works. Al...See MoreDroopy fiddle leaf fig
Comments (1)Have you watered it thoroughly? The hanging plant looks very droopy too. And presumably the new pot has a drainage hole?...See Moretropicofcancer (6b SW-PA)
6 years agoMakayla Madden
6 years agoLiz Rippe
6 years agoNicole
6 years agoMakayla Madden
6 years agoNicole
6 years agoMakayla Madden
6 years agotropicofcancer (6b SW-PA)
6 years agoLiz Rippe
6 years agotropicofcancer (6b SW-PA)
6 years agoMakayla Madden
6 years agotropicofcancer (6b SW-PA)
6 years agoMakayla Madden
6 years agotropicofcancer (6b SW-PA)
6 years agoDesiree Medina
6 years agolitterbuggy (z7b, Utah)
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agotropicofcancer (6b SW-PA)
6 years ago
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tropicofcancer (6b SW-PA)