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How soon is too soon to re-pot a fiddle leaf fig again?

2 years ago

I re-potted my FLF in May to a larger pot that would allow for bottom watering. It's loving it and has grown seven new leaves in the two months since I repotted. Yesterday I noticed the roots are growing through the pot and into the water basin below. How soon is too soon to repot again? I'm worried about root rot if they just sit directly in the water.

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Comments (2)

ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
2 years ago
we need to see the pot and plant ...

i dont understand why you need to bottom water.. seems to me the issue would be solved.. if you watered it from the top.... so it grew roots into that media ....

it appears.. the media is so dry.. that it needs to grow roots down into the available water ...

isnt it just going to grow out of the next dry pot... and back into the bottom water in the new pot???

ken
tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
2 years ago
So the 'repot' you undertook in May ..... did you bare-root the plant, remove a notable fraction of the heavy roots not attached to the base of the trunk, and entirely change the grow medium; or, did you snip a little off the sides/bottom of the root mass, slip it in another pot, then fill the voids with fresh potting medium? I ask because it's hard to believe the plant would need another actual repotting session if the work you did in May was a full repot.

There are good times and not so good times to repot. If you live in the USA somewhere other than the deep south, the 2 weeks prior to the summer solstice would be about the best time to repot because A) the plant should have had sufficient time to recover from running on empty (depleted energy reserves due to low light over the winter) and B) it will be approaching the point in the growth cycle where it's ability to make food/ create energy is about to peak (Jun 21 - summer solstice). Repotting in fall, winter, and especially early spring after a long winter and limited light loads means a much longer recovery and the plant's limited ability to defend itself from insects, disease pathogens, and abiotic pathogens.

I have repotted maybe 100 ficus (any species or size) for others, and I probably have 40 ficus, (maybe more) of my own that get repotted every year while small, and every other year after they have developed to whatever size I think is appropriate to begin serious work on them. One thing I can say is, your tree cannot be in a position so tenuous that a repot is absolutely necessary if the tree is to survive until next Jun. If the tree is in any serious jeopardy, problems are far more likely to develop from whatever bottom-watering arrangement you have chosen than from tight roots. Habitual bottom-watering is usually accompanied by the insidious increase in the level of dissolved solids (salts from tapwater and fertilizer solutions) in the soil solution, which limits the plant's ability to take up water and nutrients, even if roots are awash in a sea of plenty. Bottom-watering can quickly lead to problems related to an increasingly skewed ratio of nutrients in the soil solution, which causes antagonistic deficiencies (too much of nutrient X interfering with uptake of nutrient Y.

My suggestion would be to start top-watering, using enough water to fully saturate the grow medium with at least 20% of the total volume of water applied exiting the pot, carrying any accumulating salts with it. Make sure the water that exits the pot has no pathway by which the salts in the effluent that exits the drain hole can make their way back into the soil solution. The pot should be raised above the bottom of the saucer and should never sit in the effluent that exits the drain hole(s).

Al
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