Hello all,

This is my first post on Houzz, but I've been surfing along a number of discussions involving issues related to the ones I'm experiencing with my fiddle fig. Since buying the plant in 2016, only 6 new leaves have grown on my otherwise healthy and normal functioning ficus lyrata. I feel pretty good about the steps I need to take to spark some life back in my tree, but I need some input to ensure I can map the information I've gathered to the specifics of my house, environment and plant, itself.

A brief history description and summary of issues and attempts to solve them:

• Bought in 2016, about 60" (current height is 69" at the tallest leaf). We live in middle Tennessee (hardiness zone 7a).
• Transitioned from 10" to 12" pot in 2/2017. Shaved a few roots in the process to fit new pot (less than 10%).
• In the following spring/summer, grew about 6 new leaves. Only leaves to grow to date.
• Overwatered in 2019 and got root rot, which killed off about 50% of all the leaves. Resolved the issue by filling bottom of pot with pebbles and added a patch of landscape fabric as a partition.
• Other than that swift and devastating root rot incident, I believe my water is more or less where it needs to be since I don't have any issues with it dropping leaves or diseases.
• For duration of owning, positioned in front of south-facing window (pictured). Ironically, most of the leaves get only a few hours of direct sunlight due to the path of the sun over the house and position of blinds when they are fully retracted to maximize sunlight.

Though my plant is fixed in front of a south-facing window, I think my lack of new growth stems from one of two things, maybe both.

1. Still don't have enough sunlight to stimulate new growth
2. Root-bound.

I find reason 2 to be very strange since I haven't seen much new growth since repotting it back in 2017 (was going to re-pot in 2019, but didn't dare after the root rot incident). But sure enough, it definitely looks root-bound now. So I'm going for broke this growing reason. I'm going to re-pot in June (which is the prescribed month I've seen), and transition outside when the lows are safely 55°+.

tl:dr thus far...

• I think my fiddle fig's lack of new growth can be resolved by re-potting and transitioning outside for the summer.

Here's where I need some clarification and guidance. When it comes to re-potting I've seen from multiple comments on Houzz that fiddle figs really take to a combination of 5 parts pine bark fines, 1 part peat, 1 part perlite w/Dolomite lime. I can source the last two, but am having trouble locating pine bark fines. Need help either locating them or how to fabricate them myself. I have a lot of pine bark mulch in the beds around my house, so not sure if I could use that or the layer underneath. Can I order some online (without it costing an arm and a leg)?

As for transitioning outside for the summer, I understand the process takes about two weeks of gradually increasing direct light exposure, but are there any other considerations that need to be made during the process? Normal watering or something different, etc? What about the transition back inside during the fall?

Thanks for your time.

Will