How To Look After A Fiddle Leaf Fig
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Every time I show my Fiddle Leaf Fig Tree on instagram I get a tonne of messages asking for tips. I’m not going to pretend I’m an expert, but I have kept several alive and growing for several years, so I guess I’m doing something right, despite a very shaky start, when I first bought my tree almost five years ago.
For the purposes of this blog post, I’m concentrating on my tree rather than my smaller plants, but the care tips would be no different regardless of plant size.
There is a reason for the enduring popularity of Fiddle Leaf Fig trees - not least that Pinterest is flooded with beautiful interior images featuring them - but they really are stunning specimens, their huge papery fiddle shaped leaves have a sculptural beauty unrivalled by any other plant I’ve seen.
And the size of those leaves mean every new one is cause for celebration. Well it is for me anyway…
They have been widely available for LOT longer in the US (and quite possibly other countries too), but haven’t been that widely available in the UK - in fact they’re still a plant you have to track down to an extent - I get asked where mine is from all the time.
But here’s the thing. I won’t recommend the company I got mine from. I ordered late October in 2015, and it was sent overnight a few days later - what I know now that I didn’t know then, is that they shouldn’t be sent overnight in cold weather. It went into shock and immediately started dropping leaves. Like LOTS of leaves - it wouldn’t stop. At one point it had only a handful of leaves on the entire plant. And when the leaves are so big, it’s quite alarming, and it’s not a good sign.
I had also requested a single or double trunk which the company said you could do. I got about seven. So it was actually hugely disappointing, especially given I think it was almost £200 at the time. I should have made a fuss and got a refund, but for whatever reason at the time, I didn’t. However, I did contact them to ask what to do about the leaves dropping and the fact they probably shouldn’t have sold it knowing it was going to be shipped overnight when the temperatures in a warehouse would probably be freezing - and what was their stance if it just died, and they ignored me completely. Great customer service. Not.
I’m also pretty sure my tree is a Bambino variety which again was not what I’d ordered - and will therefore never grow and huge as I want it to. Oh and it was also two trees fused together - after the shock of its overnight journey, one half never recovered, and eventually Ed and I sawed all the dead trunks off to the soil level as the roots were too intertwined to separate properly.
The moral of the story is, don’t buy a Fiddle Leaf Fig tree online in the winter months. And I don’t recommend the place that will probably come up in your searches that begins with an H and is three words. Or if you do, be very careful and specific!
Places to look for Fiddle Leaf Fig trees:
Patch Plants, but they’re London delivery only for the large trees. I know, bummer, sorry.
Talk to a local plant nursery if they don’t have one - they might be able to get one in for you.
Columbia Road Flower Market almost always has them these days, well, pre-covid at least, but that’s London again. Check your local flower market, plant wholesaler or florist.
ANYWAY, against all odds, my tree is now rather gorgeous. It has taken a while to come into its own for the many reasons above. When it was suffering (it was literally dying), I did a lot of research and discovered the following…
They don’t like freezing temperatures. AT ALL.
They don’t like big temperature shifts.
They don’t like draughts.
They like much more water than you’ve probably been led to believe. Especially in the summer.
They like a LOT of natural light, but don’t put them right in a south facing window or the leaves will singe. I speak from experience. Oops!
They really are quite fussy, but once you give them what they want, they’re actually really low maintenance.
Despite all this, don’t be put off, because once you find a spot they like, they’re a super rewarding plant!
So this is how I care for mine - it’s really straight forward…
Self-Watering Pots
A self-watering pot is non-negotiable. It removes the guess work completely. No sticking your fingers in the soil to see if it’s dry or damp, no second guessing if the reason they’re not happy is due to too much or too little water. Plus you only have to think about checking the water level every two weeks, and refil when the gauge is low. So simple.
Before I switched to self-watering pots (for almost all my plants incidentally), I had another Fiddle Leaf Fig plant (not tree) that basically just existed and didn’t grow. For maybe two years - not a single new leaf. It looked healthy but it just stayed exactly the same. I transferred it to a self watering pot, and almost immediately it started to grow.
I also worked out that I’d been drastically under-watering mine, by noting how much water it took to fill the reservoir in the self-watering pot and how long it took until it needed re-filling and realised that they wanted probably two to three times more water than I’d been giving them. Everyone always bangs on about not overwatering Fiddle Leaf Figs, but be careful about under-watering too!
So if all this is not enough to convince you, I don’t think I can help!
A note on the self-watering pot instructions. The instructions state that you should not fill the water reservoir for a frankly ridiculous amount of time after first potting. Ignore this and fill straight away. Do not water from the top anymore. Also bear in mind that the reservoir takes up quite a bit of space in the base, so if in doubt size up.
It has to be said that they are brilliant but not pretty, which is why I have mine inside a nicer pot. I’m a big fan of zinc dolly planters. They come in many different shapes and sizes if you google them. Mine is the largest one from this set.
Let There Be Light
My tree is about a metre away from a south facing window in the loft. Zero draught. Pretty sure this is the ideal spot for it as it wasn’t happy in the living room which is also a south facing window, but the room was much more draughty back then as it was before we did the floor and before we had the window draught proofed. I think it would be fine in there now.
You need to figure out the best spot for yours in your home obviously. You will know when it’s happy.
Feed It
I add plant food to the water before filling the reservoir from around May til mid September, and have recently discovered this one which is specifically formulated for Fiddle Leaf Figs.
Clean It
You don’t need to use anything other than a damp sponge or cloth. Starting at the top, spray a leaf with water, and support with the palm of your hand from the back as you wipe each one clean working your way to the bottom leaves. I don’t do this as often as I should, but it’s super satisfying when I do!
Prune & Propagate
I know literally nothing about this topic from a technical stance, but I do know that my tree was looking way too Jack and The Beanstalk and needed a trim, so I lopped off a good chunk of the top and four weeks later it was growing two new branches, which now have a total of three new leaves, and another one or two about to unfurl. So what I do know is that I’ve never caused damage from doing this, the worst that will happen is that it will just grow straight back up rather than branching, so what have you got to lose?
You can also pop the cutting into water until it starts growing roots (several weeks), and then pot and you have a new plant. I have also done this successfully with rooting powder and planted straight away. I can’t find the one I used, but try this one.
And that’s it. That’s the full extent of my Fiddle Leaf Fig knowledge which is, as I said pretty basic. I have also heard that spritzing is good, which I have never done. Might be worth giving the leaves a spritz once a week too if you can be bothered. I can’t. Or rather, I would never remember.
Good luck on your Fiddle Leaf Fig mission, and may it be very satisfying!
