Question
I have a fiddle leaf fig that really likes its current situation.  I bought it about five months ago and it has added almost 3 feet to become about 5 feet tall.  It has never lost a leaf and no leaf has ever changed color.  It is actively growing right now.  It came and is still in a plastic pot that is 11 inches wide and 10 inches tall.

Should I repot the plant?  If so, when, how, and with what soil?  I could use Miracle Gro potting soil which is supposed to drain well.  However, the soil the plant is in now is much lighter and drains much more rapidly than I know Miracle Gro potting soil would.

On another topic, I have 12 foot ceilings with windows that go to the top.  I'm perfectly happy with vertical growth for the plant as I do not want it to take over my office horizontally.  Can it grow that high and still keep its leaves?

Thank you very much in advance.

Best,

Doug

Answer
Hi Doug,

Your Ficus lyrata is healthy and you have had no problems and remarkable success with it. So why would you try to "fix it" by moving it to a larger pot? Of course that is a rhetorical question designed to put things in perspective. Contrary to popular wisdom, most indoor plants do not need regular repotting and the size of a plant is not indicative of the pot size that it needs. As an aside, I care for a 7.5-foot Lyrata that is in a 10-inch diameter pot, gets watered once per week and is doing just fine.

Most nurseries use special potting mixes designed to maximize growth of that particular species. So the soil your Lyrata is in is far superior to a general potting mix, such as Miracle-Gro, which seems to be plagued with fungus gnat problems. That is another reason to keep your Lyrata in its existing pot as long as possible.

So how can you tell when a plant needs a larger pot? The answer is when the plant needs a thorough watering every couple of days. If it can go 3 or more days between waterings, leave it alone.

At some point you will want to prune back some of your Lyrata stems. If gravity starts to pull some of them more horizontally, prune them back. If some of the taller stems start to make the plant top-heavy, prune them back. New growth usually emerges just below the pruning cut and grows upward from there.

Older leaves will not live forever, so at some point you can expect a few older leaves to yellow and die. This is normal and cannot be prevented. If you never prune, then eventually, you will have very tall stems that have lost many of their lower leave and the new growth will mostly be in the upper portion of the plant. It will look leggy. You can avoid that by pruning once stems reach an ideal height. When you prune back to a lower height, you will be promoting new leaf growth lower down on the plant to fill in the spaces left by the natural loss of older, lower leaves.

I have written detailed articles on repotting and pruning that I will email for free to you (or anyone else) who emails a request to me at [email protected].

Please let me know if any of this is unclear or if you have any additional questions.

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Regards,
Will Creed, Interior Landscaper
Horticultural Help, NYC

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