Appearance

Moraceae

Ficus

Trees rather than houseplants, kept small by the pot. Kew's genus range is simply "Tropics & Subtropics", and the three grown here come from three continents — eastern Australia, the eastern Himalaya to western Malesia, and West Africa. Many begin life as epiphytes on another tree and strangle their way down to the ground. What they have in common indoors is the latex and the leaf drop, and both are better understood than the hobby suggests.

Native to Tropics and subtropics worldwide

How Ficus generally wants to be treated

Species pages start from this and record only where they differ.

Light
Bright indirect. UF/IFAS gives 100-200 foot-candles (roughly 1,100-2,150 lux) as the usable interior band, with a published 150 foot-candle floor for the fiddle leaf fig. Variegated cultivars want more than plain green ones, and a reverted all-green shoot should be cut out. Production light is an order of magnitude higher than anything indoors, which is the whole of the leaf-drop problem below.
Water
Sources genuinely disagree: UF/IFAS keeps interior plants moist, while Clemson, the RHS and NC State all let the surface dry first. The difference is commercial rotation against a plant you intend to keep, so let the top few centimetres dry. What is not in dispute is that saturated mix is the dominant killer — Rhizoctonia, Phytophthora and Pythium are all named on this genus in wet media.
Humidity
The one genus here where humidity is not the problem. Clemson says these tolerate the dry air common in homes, and no extension service, botanic garden or RHS page publishes an indoor humidity figure for any Ficus at all — so this record does not invent one.
Temperature
65-80 °F (18-27 °C) year round, and UF/IFAS asks for above 60 °F (16 °C) at all times, including in transit. Clemson puts the floor at 55 °F (13 °C) and the RHS at 50-55 °F (10-15 °C); take the highest of the three. Chilling shows as slimy spots and mass leaf drop. Even temperature matters more than the exact number — every source names draughts and swings as a hazard.
Substrate
Any free-draining potting compost, slightly acid to neutral. Drainage is the only thing every source agrees on, because every named failure mode is a root rot in saturated mix. Keep soluble salts low.
Fertilizer
A 3:1:2 ratio feed, and rate it to the light rather than the calendar: UF/IFAS's whole fertiliser table is indexed to interior foot-candles, and a 20 cm pot in a moderately lit room wants around 2 g of 20-20-20 spread over four months. Feeding a plant in a dim corner at a bright-room rate does not compensate — it raises the light level the plant needs just to break even.
Propagation
Stem or tip cuttings, and air layering for anything large or reluctant; the trade uses tissue culture for small stock. Iowa State's air-layering guide names these species specifically: ring the stem right down to the wood, wrap in damp sphagnum and plastic, and expect roots in a couple of months. A cutting is at its most vulnerable to rot in the fortnight after it is taken.
Dormancy
None. UF/IFAS prescribes one temperature band all year with no cold rest, no dry rest and no break in feeding. Growth slows in winter because the light does, so water and feed less — but do not cool it down. The truly deciduous, winter-dormant Ficus is the edible fig, which is a temperate plant and not one of these.
Common problems
  • Leaf drop after a move is the defining behaviour, and it is not sulking: a plant grown in bright light has a much higher light compensation point, so in a dim room its leaves cost more than they earn and get dropped. A sun leaf cannot be retrofitted — the plant has to grow new ones, which takes months
  • The colour of the fallen leaf is diagnostic. Yellow points at moisture stress; a leaf that falls still green points at low light, or at ethylene from a faulty heater, or at mercury from fresh paint nearby
  • Root rots in wet mix — Rhizoctonia, Phytophthora and Pythium are all recorded on this genus, and cuttings and plugs are the most exposed
  • Scale, mealybugs, thrips and spider mites, all of them easier to catch on a plant you look at weekly than on one you water and walk away from
  • Leaf-shine products are actively harmful: in trials they roughly tripled leaf loss over a fortnight
  • The sap is an irritant — ficin plus furanocoumarins, and NC State notes it bites harder in sunlight. Separately, and more seriously for anyone who works around these, Ficus is a real Type I airborne allergen: 27 per cent of interior-plantscaping workers carry IgE antibodies to it, against about 3 per cent of allergy-clinic patients generally

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In the collection