Thanks again for the feedback! I was already mid-repotting session when I read Al's reply so I didn't incorporate any ballast at the bottom of the pot. Now I wish I had thought of that, or even thought to put a wick in the bottom of the pot. I made the mix I described above. The bag of orchid mix looked like it was a combination of fines or peaty soil and a lot of bark/sapwood. After adding the perlite, I think (I hope!) the net effect is something like the mix Al suggested above (using one part soil similar to what it's potted in already with two parts perlite). In other words, there's perlite, lots of bark, and some fines that are similar in texture to what the tree was already planted in. I watered to beyond saturation and held the pot at a 45° angle for a few minutes to let it drain even more. It drained really well, and the soil was definitely damp, not wet. It's on the porch now. It will get open shade for the first half of the day and full sun in the late afternoon. I've got a chair in front of the pot to keep it shaded for the first hour or so the sun is on the tree so it doesn't spontaneously combust. Thanks again for all of your help. I'll keep you posted if and when any new growth starts!

You provided one clue to the likely answer to your question when you said, "I woke up this morning to find a couple leaves of one of my FLFs pointing straight up", and a second clue when you said, "I haven't watered it in a couple days (I'm waiting for the soil to dry out)". There are only a couple of things that ultimately affect the leaf's attitude (the spatial position it occupies). One is turgidity, which is essentially internal water pressure, and the other is phototropism, or the plant's reaction to light. We can eliminate phototropism because it wouldn't occur to the extent you could notice it over the course of a day, unless you were specifically conducting an experiment to measure it. Here's what I think. Your plant was somewhat wilted because of an excessive amount of water in the soil (too much water deprives the roots of oxygen, which limits their ability to function efficiently/normally). This caused the leaves to change their attitude (hang down a little/wilt). During the dark phase, the openings in leaves (stomata) that allow water to escape from the plant are closed (or very nearly so). This means that a root system that wasn't able to keep up with transpirational water loss during the day while stomata are open, WAS able to keep up with water loss at night while those openings were closed. Couple this natural rhythm of the plant with the fact you were waiting for the soil to dry down, which means that root function was probably regaining efficiency with each passing day, and you can see how the pieces of the puzzle fit together. The plant simply regained its normal turgid state and the leaves went back to their pre-wilt positions. FWIW, if FLF and rubber trees (F elastica) wilt badly, the leaves are very often permanently affected and unable to recover their previous attitude. Al

To help you figure things out ...... if you're watering when you can still detect moisture in the soil with a finger, you can't be under-watering. If you can eliminate under-watering based on the above, it pretty much leaves you with over-watering or a high level of dissolved solids in the soil from the fertilizer you applied. What did you use for fertilizer, how much did you use, and how did you apply it? Was the plant dry at application time? I don't know if I mentioned this, but it's easy to monitor soil moisture levels with a 'tell'. A wood dowel (from any hardware or home improvement store) about 5/16" in diameter works best. They come 48" long. Cut it in half & sharpen all 4 ends in a pencil sharpener. Push it deep into the soil and don't water until the first day it comes out clean/dry. Did you read the thread I linked to upthread - the one that focuses on how to deal with unwanted water retention? The best advice I offered was to concentrate on making sure your plants are in a soil you can water to beyond the point of saturation w/o having to worry the soil remain soggy so long it limits root health/function. That means you either start with an appropriate soil of find ways to limit water retention, which brings us back around to the link that takes you to the thread about dealing with water retentive soils. It's hard to tell you precisely what to do w/o you having a basic understanding of what plants require to remain healthy. Particularly important and a prerequisite to a healthy plant is a healthy root system. All of the information you need to be an accomplished container grower fits together like a jigsaw puzzle under assembly. Each piece is connected to the other pieces - either directly or extraneously, but they ARE all connected. You probably remember that it’s easier to assemble a puzzle when you work toward getting the outer 'frame' together first. The outer frame is analogous to an understanding of the basic bits knowledge required for your success. Of the basic knowledge, most important is an understanding of how the soil/water relationship works & how the individual soil components interact relative to the whole. Basically we need to understand that a healthy root system is a requirement if the plant is to be healthy. Then, and easier to understand are a very few additional issues like the importance of light to your growing experience, how fertilizers work and what fertilizer is most appropriate ……. We also need at least a very basic understanding of how some of the other cultural conditions might affect plant growth/performance. Once this basic but essential understanding is part of your skill set, that is to say the framework of the growing puzzle completed, assembling the rest of the pieces will occur at a rate exponentially faster than the rate at which you progressed at the outset of your growing experience. Unless this basic framework is complete, you’re essentially relying on trial & error, which is probably never going to gain favor as a short cut to success. Al

Hey guys, first of all, thanks to everyone that's helping. I've learned so much in the past two days. Specially Dave and Al...thank you teachers! :) So sorry about in the instrusion, I'm another one with fiddle leaf problems. I think I was sold a sick FLF...the guys just told me that it was in direct light all day long, so I thought the brown spots were justified. Until I got home and realized the soil was really compact...really....compact and soggy...and loads of rocks on top, which probably wouldn't help. So what I've did pretty fast, I went into despair...I've tried to repot it...and..of course I the roots just broke in half, and they were almost black and quite smelly... I didn't have anything around other than regular soil with perlite, so I just moved the lyrata and the now shorter roots too a new dry vase with some brick pieces at the bottom and that soil...the soil it's very loose and didn't compressed whatsoever. Didn't watered since, two days now. So after reading all of your kind info, Tomorrow I'm going too: 1. Clean the remaining roots as well as I can without damaging it more.. 2 .Repot, with 5:1:1 mix...Pine bark, Turf (should I?), Perlite; and some brick pieces in the bottom. 3. Water the lyrata once like flushing, right? And then again.. 4. The bottom leaves are very very rigid almost like they are about to break, I've read one Al's comment about "the end of life" process of these leaves...Should I cut the last leave and put the trunk deeper so it forms new healthy roots? (if this makes any sense at all) 5. Pruning, I was thinking about cutting the top (last picture), but as the bottom leaves are so stiff, maybe they aren't able to produce that much "food" and I should keep the top one for now? (I'm I thinking stupid??) 6. The only I had to cover the pot was sawdust, with which I have been lucky in protecting my plants from pests and mould. Again...in a despair act..should I maintain this? Can you help me please?? I'm based in Sintra,Portugal; very warm and humid location, actually humidity is a problem around here. Any advice is most welcome! thanks!