Hi all, I bought a fiddle leaf fig tree from someone 3 months ago and the condition (picture 1 & 2) was not the best but I really loved the thick trunk. I realised now that it’s a tell tale sign that the plant wasn’t really happy because of the minimal foliage, but I wasn’t familiar with the plant when I first bought it.
I first watered the plant in August, a month after buying the tree, when the soil was dry (I used a long chopstick to check for the moisture), and 1.5 months later the soil was still wet. The tree is placed in the living room facing a south facing window (picture 3)(I live in South East Asia), and every week the leaves started browning and slowly dropped one by one, and it’s pretty bald now (picture 4).. there’s multiple holes in the pot that the came with the tree.
In late September, I made the executive decision to uproot the tree when the leaves continued to brown and fall. I later discovered that the roots were heavily compacted in clay underneath a deep layer of potting soil above the root ball. I washed everything off and but left with no substantial root (picture 5 & 6). Most of the roots came off with the clay and I trimmed off the ones that were dead. I reused the potting soil with some addition of burnt rice husk and perlite, and repotted the tree in the same pot with lesser soil and hoped for the best (I reused the soil that was originally in the pot cause I didn’t have any in the house). Unfortunately I didn’t manage to document the whole process 🙁
Fast forward to today in October, leaves are still dropping and no roots were formed. The root development had no progress at all 🙁 it’s the same as picture 2. And to date there’s been so many leaves that dropped off (picture 7).
I repotted the tree again today into a smaller pot (picture 8)(still using the same soil with some additional burnt rice husk), and raised the trunk higher to the level of the tree flare (I realised that earlier the tree flare was buried in deep, the white mark on the trunk from picture 8).
I’m sad that the tree’s health is declining and I’m not sure if I should be patient with it or chop the ones which are alive to salvage whatever that’s left. Or should I move the tree closer to window, use a new bag of well draining soil and leave it to faith.
What would you do in this situation? Thank you for spending time to read this!
by pingstu