URGENT! Ficus Elastica (Burgundy) spots, leaves falling, Help!!

4 years ago

last modified: 4 years ago

Hello! So, I bought this sweet Burgundy Rubber Plant from Trader Joe’s about 6 week’s ago. I normally don’t buy plants from grocery stores but $10 for a 6” potted plant, especially one on my list, seemed too good a deal to pass up. From base of soil to top of leaf, it’s about 15-16” tall. Since coming home, it hasn’t seemed happy, which I expected from a grocer plant. It dropped a couple leaves from one stem (one that had been truncated) and the main stalk but now, the leaves don’t look as dark and glossy, it hasn’t put out any new growth, and has developed two worrisome areas on two different leaves, both towards the bottom. It’s leaves have never been particularly perky except the top one. One worrying leaf it developing spots on it, they look to be whitish and they do not disappear with water (I thought maybe I could wash them off but no). The other leaf has a brown area on the side of the leaf. There’s plenty of holes in the bottom though there’s not much perlite in the soil (to me) and it doesn’t drain particularly well I feel. It’s facing a floor-to-ceiling SW window with sheer white drapes partly covering half the window (it’s about 12’ from that window) and gets a little light from the other two West facing windows. There are three humidifiers running in the room most of the day, large, medium, and small. The small one is about 3’ from it, the other two are 10’ or more. I have not fertilized it since it already has those fertilizer pearls in it from the grocer mix. Help!! I’m only a year into caring for houseplants and it’s my first rubber plant.

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tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)

4 years ago

Since coming home, it hasn’t seemed happy, which I expected from a
grocer plant. All plants we're likely to buy are already blessed (by Mother Nature) with genetics making them capable of becoming a beautiful specimen. The skillset possessed by whomever has had responsibility for the plant's care is what determines how much of that genetic potential is realized - heavy emphasis here on cultural influences. So, where the plant is from has very little to do with it's potential except in the immediate, where recently poor cultural practices might have negatively influenced the plant's current state of vitality. It dropped a couple leaves from one stem (one that had
been truncated) and the main stalk but now, the leaves don’t look as
dark and glossy, it hasn’t put out any new growth, and has developed two
worrisome areas on two different leaves, both towards the bottom. It’s
leaves have never been particularly perky except the top one. One
worrying leaf it developing spots on it, they look to be whitish and
they do not disappear with water (I thought maybe I could wash them off
but no). The other leaf has a brown area on the side of the leaf.
There’s plenty of holes in the bottom though there’s not much perlite
in the soil (to me) and it doesn’t drain particularly well I feel. It’s
facing a floor-to-ceiling SW window with sheer white drapes partly
covering half the window (it’s about 12’ from that window) and gets a
little light from the other two West facing windows. There are three
humidifiers running in the room most of the day, large, medium, and
small. The small one is about 3’ from it, the other two are 10’ or more.
I have not fertilized it since it already has those fertilizer pearls
in it from the grocer mix. Help!! I’m only a year into caring for
houseplants and it’s my first rubber plant.

You probably don't realize the amount of light striking the plant at 12 ft from the window is only 144th as bright as it would be AT the window, so it would undoubtedly respond more favorably to more light, and, it would REALLY appreciate a full sun spot outdoors for the summer, once night temps are reliably above 50-55*f.

Your plant is small enough that workarounds to help with a soil that's potentially too water retentive are easy, so making sure you're adhering to good watering habits is something you can start today, if you're not already watering correctly. Water over the sink until the soil has been completely saturated and the soil flushed thoroughly. The first time you flush the soil, make sure you pour a minimum of room temp water equal to at least 10X the volume of the pot slowly through the soil to flush accumulating salts from tapwater and fertilizers out of the soil. If you water in small sips to 'avoid over-watering', ALL salts that go into the soil STAY in the soil. Nutrient release from CRFs (controlled release fertilizers) is primarily
driven by temperature, so you don't have much control over the level of
nutrients released. That accumulation needs remediation because it causes limitations on more than 1 front. When you've finished watering, hold the plant in your hand over the sink - support the trunk with the other hand if required. Move the plant up and down. You'll immediately see on the reversal from downward to upward, water in the soil tends to keep moving downward as the pot moves upward. and the sharper the reversal, the more water exits the pot. Keep up the upward/downward movement until no more water exits the pot, then return the planting to its cache pot. Never allow the plant to sit in the cache pot in the effluent that exits the drain holes after watering. You can add blocks to lift the pot up so there is no pathway by which the effluent can make its way back into the soil.

With vitality comes vibrancy - a healthy glow. I can't say whether or not you should start fertilizing at this point, but as long as you're using good watering habits it's probably a good idea. My suggestion would be to use this:

at the maintenance rate every other time you water until you repot, then you can increase the rate.

The loss of a few leaves isn't unusual, and the plant should stabilize by summer if you adopt the new habits. The leaf with the spots looks suspicious in that it's not a mechanical injury, it isn't fungal, it's not oedema, and doesn't present like an over/under-watering or over-fertilizing issue.

If you have interest in learning more, I can provide you with informational resources I've posted here at GW/Houzz, but I won't bother unless you do have interest.

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Comments (6)

moonbunny91
Original Author
4 years ago
Thanks!! I do water it in small increments so I will switch to the method you recommend. The reason I have it so far from the window is that I live in Texas and the sunlight from my windows has burned any plant that isn’t a desert-like plant. (The windows also draft quite a bit as well). I have two other indoor, indirect bright light plants next to the rubber plant and they’re very happy, so it seemed like it would be happy there. We have been having some very erratic high to low weather (cloudy/wet 30s to suddenly 80+ and clear the next day) for about a month and maybe that upset it? Given all that, should I still move it to within 3’ of the window? :/

And absolutely, I’d love to learn more!
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tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
It's not likely that a F elastica would suffer from sunburn (photo-oxidation) by way of light passing through a window unless it was moved there w/o efforts to acclimate it to the brighter site. Ficus is better able to adapt to higher light than lower light. What CAN happen though, no matter whether it's acclimated to the light load in that spot or not, is suffer from over-heating, which is an entirely different issue from sunburn. Over-heating occurs when light hitting the leaves turns to heat on the leaf's surface and causes the leaf temperature to rise. Normally, a fan operating in the room from noon to about 4PM will upset the 'boundary layer' of air that surrounds the leaf and holds heat in, which allows the heat to dissipate. It's worth trying to give the tree more light. Also, it's no big deal if the leaves do burn. Your tree can be entirely defoliated and it will produce a new flush of pristine leaves perfectly adapted to light levels wherever it's sited. Before and after sequence of one of my F benjaminas:

If the tree is reasonably healthy, and yours is, it should back-bud profusely if you defoliate it in May ....... but I would get the watering and fertilizing straightened out and make sure it's starting to grow in earnest for you before you defoliate.

As far as learning more, you can read thisBasic Overview of Good Growing Practices. As you read, you'll probably notice a strong emphasis on soil choice. That's because getting your soil right will very likely make more difference in how successful you are than any other single factor. By far and away, the highest % of growers arrive here at the forum seeking resolution for problems because they're in a constant battle with their soil for control of their plants' vitality. This link to a piece about Caring for Ficus Trees in Containers has a lot of good information about tropical and subtropical trees in the the Ficus genus. There's another thread that goes into much detail about container soils if you're interested, but I'll be working on reposting that thread tonight. It has so many posts it's become unwieldy and the second half of the thread has become difficult to access. There is a thread about fertilizing and one about care for trees in pots, in general, too. Let me know if you want to look after you've digested the two above.

Ficus are actually pretty easy and forgiving, though they do have a couple of quirks ....... which are actually overplayed far more than deserved. I think you'll be very pleased at how much more potential your plants will realize after putting a sound care plan in place.

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moonbunny91
Original Author
4 years ago
I just went to move it and the leaf with the brown fell off!! 😖😖🥺 it has little white flecks on the back that gently scratch off... 😱 gonna read the threads you suggested. Also moved it to a spot closer to the window, about 4’ so it can acclimate to more light and then move it closer?
moonbunny91
Original Author
4 years ago
So the soil that it’s currently in definitely doesn’t drain well and I’ll be buying the soil parts you recommended on Friday and want to repot (I never up-pot) and do a good root prune as soon as they arrive. The defoliating makes me so nervous. (Side note: the soil I use for my other plants is 1 part perlite to 2 parts MG indoor potting mix, it drains quite nicely. Would that be an acceptable mixture?)
tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
4 years ago
The white specs look like the shed skins of a sap-sucking insect - like aphid or whitefly, but I can't be sure w/o a closer look.

With Ficus, I often don't bother acclimating them at all. If I bring them out of the basement (around Memorial Day) and put them straight into full sun, the leaves burn, fall off, and a fresh flush of foliage takes their place - no big deal. I'm not suggesting you follow that practice - just saying that defoliating a Ficus that's reasonably healthy is no big deal. In fact, as a bonsai practitioner, I use that strategy almost every summer day. Partially or fully defoliating branches slows growth. This is useful when you have a heavy branch growing above a thinner branch. Where esthetics are concerned, I want the lowest branches to be the thickest - as you see in nature. I might defoliate the top of a tree several times during the course of a summer so they don't thicken much - to keep them twiggier.

Another Ficus sequence:

The leaves and branches were removed from this tree ^^^ in June; it was grown from a cutting. Not much left of the top, eh?

Same tree in August. ^^^ See how the tree has responded with a new flush of foliage?

This ^^^ is about an hour after the middle image - after pruning again and wiring branches into position.

Below, you'll see another ficus that has had almost all it's leaves removed and the terminal leaf (leaf at the end of a branch) cut in half. Defoliation forces the plant to use up some of its energy reserves, so the new leaves in the new flush will be reduced in size - not important to you, but quite important to a bonsai enthusiast who is making the effort to reduce the size of the leaves so they're more in scale to the size of the tree.

"So the soil that it’s currently in definitely doesn’t drain well and I’ll be buying the soil parts you recommended on Friday and want to repot (I never up-pot) and do a good root prune as soon as they arrive. The defoliating makes me so nervous. (Side note: the soil I use for my other plants is 1 part perlite to 2 parts MG indoor potting mix, it drains quite nicely. Would that be an acceptable mixture?)" There is really no need for you to worry about repotting right away. If it was my tree, and given you're in TX, I'd wait until around Memorial Day. The tree will recover faster and be less susceptible to insects/diseases. Plants have natural rhythms, which is the underlying reason that every day is not a good day to repot, or perhaps saying there is a window in summer when repotting is best tolerated by the plant. In the US, I consider Oct through April to be the part of the growth cycle when repotting is hardest on the plant. This is because it just finished a winter of stressful temp, humidity, and especially light levels, which leaves the plant's energy reserves at the lowest level of the growth cycle. Around Father's Day or the summer solstice, the tree will just be coming into the most robust part of the growth cycle, which is why I repot all my tropical and subtropical trees then.

With what's going on re COVID-19, I'm not sure how accessible pine bark will be, but it's a versatile soil ingredient. These are the two basic soils I make for everything I grow:

Notice how chunky everything is. That's so the medium cannot hold water in the large air spaces between the soil particles, a physical soil characteristic that roots really appreciate. However, if pine bark proves elusive, there is a way to use ballast in the pot bottom that will reduce the volume of excess water a planting can hold to almost none. That strategy will allow you to use soils which would otherwise be an adversarial nuisance, one you'll do battle with for control of your plant's vitality, in most cases w/o you even realizing the extent of its limitations. The important thing to take away from the conversation is, even if you can't find appropriate soil ingredients or you change your mind about making your own soil, there are easy strategies that will keep you free of the limitations associated with an excess of water in the soil.

Al