Fiddle leaf fig propagation, Propagating fig cuttings in water and soil | Plant Propagation

Fiddle leaf fig propagation, Propagating fig cuttings in water and soil | Plant Propagation

fiddle leaf cutting

Hi everyone

Welcome to my blog post

today plant for plant diary posting is How to Propagate Ficus lyrata Plant

Ficus lyrata which is commonly called fiddle leaf fig, fig tree, fiddle leaf is a great indoor plant to decorate home with its tree shape, large foliage.

this is one of our fiddle leaf tree.

because fiddle leaf fig plant foliage has a hard texture, I thought it can resist foliage burn from strong light or reflected heat from the window.

For that reason, I placed this plant close to the north-facing window.

During the spring and summertime in Australia, the fiddle leaf was absolutely fine even though the plant was placed close to the north-facing window.

however, since the season has been changed to autumn and winter, the light amount that comes through the north-facing window was increased, and eventually, it caused my fiddle leaf plant foliage to burn.

fig tree burnt leaves

if the foliage burnt area was minor, I might cut out the burnt area and constantly let it grow. However, the foliage has been burn in various, and wide areas, I decided to cut the stem and grow from small size and propagating fig trees with the cuttings.

How to cut fiddle leaf fig tree

when I cut the fig tree, I usually take 3 steps

1. remove the damaged foliage first

2. check out the nodes on the stem and foliage number

3. with sharp garden scissors, cut between the nodes.

Remove damaged foliage

Removing dead or damaged foliage is I would say it may not essential. however, once you clean up the dead foliage first, it helps you draw an image how's the fig cuttings will look like and you can decide where to cut better

Check out the nodes on the stem and foliage number

mostly the new shoots or roots generate from the node or near the node. For that reason, when we cut it is much better to avoid damaging nodes

Prepare fiddle leaf cutting propagation

when I do propagate indoor plants, I mostly keep one node, one to three long enough aerial root, and one foliage. then, when it propagates in water or soil, both of them worked quite well. However, this time is a bit different.

The stem doesn't have an aerial root, and the fiddle leaf fig foliage is way too big to compare to nodes and stem.

for propagating figs tree, I thought I need to keep at least 3~4 nodes for 2 nodes to rooting and the other 2 nodes for encouraging new shoots.

Also, what I did for this time is, I removed all fig foliage except for one, and even that one foliage is I cut to 1/3 size.

Of course, the plant needs leaves. The chlorophyll in the green leaf does photosynthesis, and that energy is being used for building plant cells, rooting, and re-shooting.

However, in that process, the foliage tends to use water from the plant, and if the plant cutting doesn't have roots, and has big foliage, it only encourages the cutting to dry out quicker. That's why I removed most of the foliage and also make the foliage smaller to help the cuttings to survive and root first.

Propagation fig cuttings

for propagating fig cuttings, there are two general ways of fiddle leaf propagation

1. Propagating fig cuttings in water

2. Propagating fig cuttings in soil

Propagating fig cuttings in water

Fiddle leaf cutting callus before after

after cleaning up the foliage, and cut, I left few cuttings which will be used for water propagation at the shady area, so the sap from the cut is dry enough

The process of waiting for the sap to be drying and healed is called callus, and it is an important process as if the cutting is callused well, it can prevent rotting or infection.

Propagating fig cuttings in water

I left about 1 day to make sure the fiddle leaf cuttings callus and then put in a clear jar, filled water until 2~3 nodes can be sink.

That's pretty much it for propagating fig cutting in water. I'm going to place this in bright to medium light condition and change the water once a week.

Propagating fig cuttings in Soil

fiddle leaf cutting in plant hormone

For the fiddle leaf cutting that I'm going to use for soil propagation, I dip in the plant hormone straight after cut and leave it a shady spot as well.

Still, I'm not 100% sure does plant hormone helps the callus, but in my experience on Propagating Callisa plant, it worked well on rooting, so I believe it will help to root fiddle leaf cutting as well.

Propagating fiddle leaf fig cutting in soil

Same as water propagation, I gave 24 hours to callus first, filled soil in the pot 1/3 first, place the cutting on top, and filled the rest soil.

now everything is ready, and check how does fiddle leaf cutting performs.

To be honest, I'm not really sure how it will turn out because I only did with the fiddle leaf bambino plant before (you can check out my fiddle leaf bambino propagation video here) but let's wish it will establish well.

Thank you for reading my post and

I'll keep update on how it goes :)

Hansoo

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