Rubber tree plant - Ask Extension
I’m writing to ask if MN master gardeners can help with house plants? I inherited a large ficus elastica tineke over the summer and I’m struggling...
Knowledgebase
Rubber tree plant #676396
Asked October 18, 2020, 3:34 PM EDT
I’m writing to ask if MN master gardeners can help with house plants? I inherited a large ficus elastica tineke over the summer and I’m struggling with it. I’ve feel like Im not finding the answers I need online so far. If you can help, let me know and I can all the photos/details etc. If that’s ‘not your department’, no harm done. Thanks in advance!
All County Minnesota
Expert Response
Fiscus elastica needs a minimum of 75- to 100-foot candles of light but prefers a level of 200- to 500-foot candles.It requires a moderate amount of water and loves some humidity in the atmosphere. One method to increase the humidity is to place the houseplants on trays (saucers) filled with pebbles or gravel and water. The bottoms of the pots should be above the water level. Houseplants require less frequent watering during the winter months than in spring and summer. Actively growing plants need more water than those at rest during the winter months.
Apply house plant fertilizer at the following rate. One teaspoon soluble house plant fertilizer per gallon of water every other month during winter and every month during spring and summer.
https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/ficus-elastica/
We will try to answer your houseplant questions.
Thank you so much for trying to help. I’m going to try to give you as much info as I can.
So I Inherited this plant in july with little backstory to its history. It has a trunk that is about 1 1/4 inches wide, and has obviously had some thicker branches pruned over time so it seems to be an older plant.
Ive never had a woody house plant before, nor one in such a large pot, so there was a learning curve. I had it on my porch (south facing but well shaded) until it will getting down to 60 degrees at night, then I moved it inside. I sprayed it heavily with neem oil/water/dish soap mixture the day I brought it in like I do with my other plants.
I know these plants don’t like to be moved so I hadn’t changed the location once I brought it in. It was sitting about 4 feet from a west window (early on I got bad advice from several sources saying that these do best in a corner of a bright room rather than closer to the window)
When it was outside I had watered it once every 1-3 weeks depending on how the soil felt. I was using hose water at first I switched to rainwater about 6 weeks ago to rule that out.
In September, once inside my house) it produced 3 new leaves that were large and super healthy in a pretty short period.
I watered it til it fully drained Somewhere around sept 10th (give or take a couple days). I watered it again on the 29th. I noted that I watered with a little over a gallon of distilled water, but that it didn’t drain. But I woke up the next day and its dish was totally full with standing water...(Which I quickly removed) I checked the soil with meter and it read as wet all the way down so I removed as much soil from the top as I could and heavily aerated the pot. By night time that day, the soil still felt and metered too wet for my comfort so I removed a little soil from the side edges and then added fresh soil on the sides and top to help wick away and distribute the moisture if possible.
I had never been happy with the soil it came in (it felt like it held to much moisture) but I do know that it had been repotted earlier this year at some point.
The day after the ‘sitting in a dish of water’ incident, I noticed new brown spots on some of the leaves, and some had just brown and black developing on just on the very edges. Worth pointing out this is when the humidity dropped so I had just added water dishes around the pot, and begun misting daily. (I stopped misting about 2 weeks later in fear that I was making it worse somehow)
It took me two weeks to find a replacement pot in the right size, but 5 days ago I finally was able to remove it and repot it in a better soil. I mixed 30% pine bark, 40% peatmoss, and 40% perlite. ( I also wanted to switch the soil in case the fluoride etc from watering it the first two months with hose water could be having a lasting impact)
The roots look like it had been pot bound at some point in its life, and I did my best to clean in all the nooks to get the old soil out. I rinsed it as well as I could in the shower, before putting it in its new pot.
Some of the roots look better than other for sure. I decided not to water it yet because it has been damp so long without being allowed to dry out a little.
Worth noting that I have only had 3 leaves drop during this, and all when I bumped them.
So the leaves had some various spots and damage when I got the plant, but nothing changed or grew in size until this ‘sitting in water overnight’ happened.
The confusion for me partly lays in how inconsistent the leaf signs are. I have really angry leaves side by side with some of the healthiest ones on the tree. Some of the oldest leaves, all the way to some of the newest ones, and scattered in various spots so not seeing to reflect a spot that gets more or less sun/airflow. Its also worth noting that only about a 1/4 of the leaves are showing signs of issues. The rest are just hanging out.
Photos attached trying to show some of the variety of leave ‘damage’ I see. Keep in mind that some were like this when I got it and just got worse when it sat in water. Others are totally new from when that happened. And the types of ‘angry’ the leaves are is mixed. Everything from what looks like sunburn, to just big brown spots, to dried out margins, to funky black margins, to tiny dark spots, to very light brown sort of ‘sticky looking‘ markings that aren’t actually sticky, to rippled and distorted leaves.
I have also (as of yesterday) moved it upstairs for the winter in a room that is warmer, more humid, and it can be sitting in an east window that gets good sunlight in the winter. There is literally no window in my house that isn’t next to a radiator so right now then plant is about 2-3 feet from one, but I keep a temp and humidity gauge next to the tree to be careful. And I am picking up a humidifier for the room today to help keep the moisture higher as well.
I don’t know what kind it was, but I guess I should mention that the previous soil had fertilizer beads in it.
Thank you for reading this novel. This plant is sentimental because of who it came from some I would love to try to save it. Any advice is so appreciated!
- Courtney
On Sun, Oct 18, 2020 at 8:17 PM Ask Extension <personal data hidden>> wrote:
Brown edges on plant leaves can be caused by over or under watering, over fertilizing, or accumulation of salts from your water softener. You might try watering with rainwater or melted snow. In the meantime, cut off the
leaves that are browning.
Thanks- I did actually switch to rain water about 6 weeks ago (that was in all that info, but I sent a LOT hahaha!) I haven't fertilized it, and I don't have a water softener. So I am going to assume its from over/under watering? Is it possible that its more an issue of the soil it had holding too much moisture? I would always check a couple inches down to be sure it was dry before watering, but I'm wondering if the lower part of the pot was staying really wet. Since this is the biggest potted plant I have ever worked with, I'm not super sure about the nuances of container gardening at that size.
On Wed, Oct 21, 2020 at 5:04 PM Ask Extension <personal data hidden>> wrote:
Most plants stay healthiest when watered deeply and infrequently. Water your plant so all the soil is moist, then let the soil dry slightly before watering again. Try to avoid overly wet or dry soil. Do not allow the pot to sit in water for any length of time. If the humidity in your home is very low, a pebble-filled tray at the plant's base can help to increase the humidity. The plant may not need a humidifier. It may be a combination of factors that are causing the edges of the leaves to turn brown. It will take time for the plant to adjust to it new environment. The newest leaves look healthy.
