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tessa_m_henson

Fiddle Leaf Fig - Fertilized Too Soon?

tessa_m_henson
6 years ago

I potted up my fiddle leaf fig five days ago, and today when it was time to water it for the first time since the repot, I fertilized it with a full strength 20-20-20 water soluble fertilizer. I was clearly not thinking straight (two small children at home and pretty sleep deprived!) because I forgot the repot had only been a few days prior...I know I should not have fertilized it so soon. Now I'm really worried, but it's too late...Is my tree going to be damaged from fertilizing too soon? He didn't show any signs of transplant shock at all, but there have not been any signs of new growth yet either. Also, if he is going to end up injured from this, is there anything I could do to mitigate some of the damage?

Comments (22)

  • tessa_m_henson
    Original Author
    6 years ago

    Anyone?

  • Dave
    6 years ago
    last modified: 6 years ago

    As I told you in the other post, that's. It a great fertilizer with the 20-20-20 NPK ratio.

    Get some Foliage Pro 9-3-6 or at thevery least, even Miracle Gro 12-4-8.

    What exactly was the new soil you used? What's in it?

    how often do you water? What do you use as your "tell" that it's time to water again?

    Any photos?

    tessa_m_henson thanked Dave
  • robin98
    6 years ago

    Tessa, usually you could rinse out the excess fertiliser by watering with a lot of plain water, to flush it out. But for a just repotted plant in a water retaining soil that might not be so good. The roots won't have fully reestablished so it won't be taking up much water and might end up sitting in saturated soil for too long, risking rotting the roots.

    You're not supposed to fertilise because the fertiliser can't be taken up, so it sits there in the soil and exerts an osmotic pull, making it even harder for the plant to take up any water. So that is the danger. But if your plant took its repotting well, without any transplant shock, maybe it's roots are already working pretty well and it won't matter.

    If you do nothing I don't think it'll die, but maybe get brown edges ("fertiliser burn"). Or it could be fine! If you decide to flush it through with more water, there are some tips to helping the soil drain as much as possible afterwards (there's a thread about it somewhere, I don't know how to link, sorry) eg. tilt the pot on a 45 degree angle for 10-20 minutes to drain more then sit the pot on paper towels or a towel, making sure theyre touching the drainage holes, to draw out even more.

    All that assumes your pot has drainage holes! Good luck, and don't feel too bad. I had a brain fade last week, and went to rinse off my FLFs leaves while the water in the shower was still hot. The newest softest leaf folded back inside out. I was kicking myself. Thought it'd wrecked it (fortunately it recovered a day later)



    tessa_m_henson thanked robin98
  • tessa_m_henson
    Original Author
    6 years ago

    Hi all, thank you so much for your responses! Let me see if I can answer everything...

    Dave, here are some photos... It's hard to get a decent picture of it right now with the back light/glare coming through the windows. The tree is placed between two northern exposure windows and one western exposure window - about 2 or so ft from the closest north window and 3-4 ft from the western window. Currently the tree is showing zero changes at all, thankfully; no drooping, no yellowing of any leaves, no brown edges. There are 2 leaves you may see in the pictures that have brown edges, but they were already like that when I bought the tree and have not increased in size. I have the Foliage Pro on order now and plan to only use that in the future, thank you for that information! I unfortunately only stumbled across this forum after I had potted up my FLF, so now after doing more reading, I'm feeling like I've done everything wrong. So with the soil, it was an organic potting mix by FoxFarm; I'll need to dig out the bag to see what all was in it, but I know that it has no moisture control additives. It does have some perlite, but now I'm worried the overall particle size is too small and it won't drain well enough. Thankfully I at least put the old soil (it was large particle stuff with lots of bark and perlite too) on the bottom of the new pot, and then about the bottom half of the pot is filled with that mixed with this new soil. When I ran out I used just the new soil, which ended up filling about the top half. So maybe I'm not totally screwed in the drainage department? but now I wish I had found this forum beforehand so I could have mixed up a truly appropriate soil. This was the first time I'd watered since potting up (I didn't actually water when I potted up - I used moist soil instead). Before, I watered about once a week, just when the top couple inches of soil were dry. Now I'm thinking it'll definitely take more than a week before it will be ready to water again because this soil does seem to be holding more water than the previous mix it was in.

  • tessa_m_henson
    Original Author
    6 years ago

  • tessa_m_henson
    Original Author
    6 years ago

    Thank you for the information, robin98! I'm so glad your tree recovered! Yes, I'm worried that if I water through the soil will just be too wet too early; it doesn't seem soggy, but under the surface it's plenty moist and it definitely seems more water retaining than the previous soil it was originally in. Why, oh why, didn't I find this forum before I potted him up? Lol.

  • tessa_m_henson
    Original Author
    6 years ago

    I would really love to have this tree grow and thrive in my home for a long time... Does anyone think I should pull him out (not necessarily right away since I understand I already shocked him twice with the transplant and fertilizing) so I can repot him in appropriate soil? I am in zone 8a and think we have a couple more months before we start losing a ton of light.

  • Dave
    6 years ago
    last modified: 6 years ago

    Is there a drain hole in the pot? The pot looks too large with a mix that looks too water retentive.

    Youll likely deal with watering issues as its going to take a long time for the mix to dry out.

    Pine bark is great in a mix, but it needs to make up a certain percentage to have any benefit.

    i don't mean to sound negative, I'm just being absolutely honest.

    I grow a lot of ficus. They do best in a very fast draining porous mix like the 5:1:1.

  • robin98
    6 years ago

    Lovely tree! But I agree with Dave, that's a big pot with a very fine mix. If there's no drainage hole it's a death sentence. You can keep plants in a plastic pot with drainage holes, that you sit inside a more decorative "cache" pot. Take them out when you water them, don't put them back in until they've stopped draining. Yours might be too big/heavy for that.

    You need to let the soil dry right down with ficus (read up about how to check with a "dowel"), and then when you do water, do it thoroughly so that some comes through the drainage holes. So if there is a drainage hole, how will you manage that? Without damaging your wood floors?

    Here's what I mean by cache pot, for future reference, with a smaller plant.

  • tessa_m_henson
    Original Author
    6 years ago

    So, the internal size of the pot is actually quite a bit smaller than it appears... The tree came in a 12"x12" pot, and the internal measurements of this pot are 15"x15". This is a "self-watering" pot, so t has a reservoir at the bottom the extra water will drain into, but I wasn't planning on using it as a self-watering pot. I was planning on continuing to water from the top. There is a water gauge tube that goes down into the bottom reservoir, and I removed the gauge so it's basically an empty tube that goes all the way to the bottom. So when I watered, I continued until water came out the bottom and then used a very long pipette to suck all the water out of the reservoir so that there is no standing water in the bottom. And no worries at all Dave, I appreciate the candor! I just want to figure out a solution to the problem I've created for my poor tree, lol. And thank you, robin! I considered doing a catch pot inside another pot, but I just couldn't find anything (I really liked) that meet the dimension requirements I needed because I had read that going too big with a new pot was bad for ficus. Everything I liked was too big or too small, so I ended up with this, lol!

  • tessa_m_henson
    Original Author
    6 years ago

    So, do you all think I should leave the tree alone for a week or two and then repot into the correct soil mixture? I don't want to kill the poor thing! Thankfully he still isn't looking stressed out, and I've been checking a bit obsessively.

  • Ekor Tupai
    6 years ago

    Yes if no bad sign appear. Repoting twice under 2 weeks is too risky. He is regrowing his new root hairs using his stored energy, so if under the process he repoted again, root hair damaged again, and have to start over regrowing, his stored energy become too low. Need longer time back to normal, and sometimes drop leaves happens since they don't get water suply from root too long.

    tessa_m_henson thanked Ekor Tupai
  • robin98
    6 years ago

    Yes I agree.

    tessa_m_henson thanked robin98
  • tessa_m_henson
    Original Author
    6 years ago

    Thank you all so much for your feedback! I very much appreciate all your help. How long do you think I should wait before changing out the soil, maybe 4 weeks, or could it be sooner? Like you all said, I don't want to risk stressing him out even more too soon, but I do want to repot him as soon as would be reasonable while we are still in the growing season.

  • robin98
    6 years ago

    Tessa I don't know what the best interval would be. It needs time to regrow the fine roots and then time to replace the energy that was diverted to that. I don't know how long that would take. Maybe someone else will. On the plus side, because it came through its first repot so well, that whole process will be faster than if it had struggled to recover.

    So you want to have given it enough time to recover, but not so long that you're past the growing season. Check the soil to help you decide : if it's still wet deep in the pot (use a dowel) more than a week after watering, then that's no good. You'll end up watching it go downhill from root rot over the next few months (and your chances are worse repotting a sick tree in winter). If the soil is drying out well, then I'd be tempted to leave repotting until next season...

    Rock and a hard place! Hopefully someone who has been in the same position can help more specifically. Good luck and keep us posted!

    tessa_m_henson thanked robin98
  • Ekor Tupai
    6 years ago
    last modified: 6 years ago

    Not like temperate trees that able to enter dormant period to protect theirself against freeze, ficus lyrata just can't do that. They keep growing, that's why they can't survive outside. The good side is, indoor, you can keep them warmer and grow, even slower in low temperature. I read somewhere here a guy prune and propagate ficus lyrata during winter successfully. So just give it time. That ficus stay active in every season.

    tessa_m_henson thanked Ekor Tupai
  • robin98
    6 years ago

    Gudang, assuming Tesse is going to repot a second time, when is the soonest you think she could do that ie. what is the minimum amount of time she needs to leave between the first repot and the second repot? Considering her tree seems pretty healthy?

    tessa_m_henson thanked robin98
  • Ekor Tupai
    6 years ago

    After we get new leaf. Root hairs regenerate every 2-9 days so maybe plenty down there already. After he recharge his energy, he will growing leaves. In warm and plentiful light he metabolism faster, so it will depend on that.

    tessa_m_henson thanked Ekor Tupai
  • tessa_m_henson
    Original Author
    6 years ago

    Robin and Gudang, I thank you so, so much for your help! I will definitely keep you posted as I watch and wait for a new leaf to form. :D I'm going to get a dowel and check on the soil moisture deep in the pot as well, like you suggested Robin, because I definitely don't want to cause root rot. It's been unseasonably cloudy and rainy here for the past week... I'm hoping for some sunshine soon to help this guy out! I'm starting to notice some browning on some of the tips of the leaves. :( I really hope it doesn't get worse!

  • tessa_m_henson
    Original Author
    6 years ago

    Alright, well I just did some reading on the dowel method and saw someone mention it works better on larger particle soils...I stuck my dowel in, and it definitely doesn't feel wet, but maybe a slight bit of moisture and tiny soil particles stuck to it? The trouble I think for me is that this soil does seem to have some very fine particles in it, and even when I'm touching the surface of it (which feels dry) those tiny particles stick to my fingers. So I'm not sure if the soil stuck to the dowel is a good indicator for me? Now that I'm obsessing about not messing with my plant, haha, I don't want to add an incorrect watering regime to the plethora of problems I've already caused for this guy.

  • robin98
    6 years ago

    I go more by how the end feels : slightly damp or even just slightly cool means there is still moisture in the soil. When you first stop feeling any difference at the tip of the dowel, that's when it's time to water. You won't need to check all the time once you get the hang of it.

    tessa_m_henson thanked robin98