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TIL my old way of watering my fiddle leaf fig was slowly killing it
For a year I just gave it a cup of water every Friday, but the leaves kept turning brown and dropping. A plant shop owner in Austin told me to only water when the top two inches of soil are bone dry, and now it's pushing out three new leaves. How do you figure out the right watering schedule for your fussy plants?
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terry_thomas1mo ago
Yeah, the "top two inches dry" rule is a good start, but even that can be tricky if your pot is deep. I've found that sticking my finger all the way in near the root ball is the only real way to know. A set weekly schedule almost never works because light and heat change how fast the soil dries out. For my fussy ones, I just accept that I'm going to be poking the dirt every few days like a weirdo.
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jordan_young25d ago
Has anyone thought about what kind of water they're using? I killed a fern once because I was just giving it tap water straight from the sink and the minerals built up over time. Took me way too long to realize it was the chlorine and stuff that was making the leaves go crispy. Switching to filtered water or letting the tap sit out for a day really helped a lot of my plants. Even with the top two inches dry rule if your water is full of junk it can still mess things up.
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