How I Saved My Sad Fiddle Leaf Fig

OK, so a little backstory on what happened. My fiddle leaf fig was looking great up until December ‘23, when I went on a nine day vacation. The soil had dried out way too much and, it started losing leaves like crazy.

In January, I decided to try to do something about it, and bring my once thriving flf back to its former glory. I experimented by trying three different methods on each of the branches to see which one would give the best results. One branch a notched, and then pruned, another branch, I notched an air layered, and the last branch I notched and used cakey paste.

By march the branch that I had pruned decided to completely die off, so I was left with only 2 branches.

In April I pruned the branch that I was air layering and air layered the final branch since the keiki paste wasn’t doing anything.

In may I chopped the final branch and stuck it out on my deck in full sun. At this point no new growth points had activated and I literally stuck a naked tree outside. My neighbors were probably so confused as to why I stuck a tree branch in dirt and put it out on my deck 😂 but almost immediately after putting it outside new growth started to appear!

Fast forward to now, it has exploded with new growth and is looking AMAZING! Placing it outside was a major game changer when it came to jumpstarting growth & while light played a HUGE role in all the new growth, there were some other things I did that I feel like helped immensely ↓ ↓ ↓

1. I didn’t let the soil dry out completely. Whenever the soil dried out too much, leaves started falling off again

2. I made sure to fertilize regularly! every time I watered, I fertilized! FLF are heavy feeders, make sure to fertilize regularly for more consistent growth!

3. I saw the most growth between June and July which is when I added FLF treats from Bless your Soil to my care regimen! This stuff is magic! I started seeing more growth and bigger & healthier glossier leaves.

the Link for the fiddle leaf treats is available in my bio! Discount code “LIANA” for 10% off