Bought a bushy ficus elastica six years ago. Same east window, same 20cm pot, watered when the top few centimetres dry out, fed through summer. It is alive and it puts out maybe four leaves a year, and it has slowly become a bare stem with a tuft on top. Is there a normal lifespan going on here, or have I been keeping something barely alive for six years without noticing?
I bought a light meter out of curiosity and it recalibrated my expectations permanently. A metre back from my east-facing window on a bright morning read a small fraction of what the same meter read outdoors in open shade, and the difference between one metre and directly on the sill was larger than I would ever have guessed by eye. Our eyes adapt logarithmically, so a room that looks bright to you can be close to survival lighting for a ficus. Before repotting, try moving it as close to the glass as it will physically go for a season.
I had the identical bare stick with a tuft and I could not make myself cut it. Eventually I took about a third off in April, hated it for six weeks, and then got three branches from below the cut and a plant that looks better now than it did when I bought it. The thing I did wrong was waiting two years to do it out of sentiment.
Cutting in spring is the part that makes this safe. The same cut in November gives you a stick and a long wait.
I would put more weight on the pot than the light here. Six years in a 20cm pot means the root ball is almost certainly a solid mass, water is running down the sides rather than through it, and no amount of feeding gets absorbed. Tip it out and look before you change anything else - you will know in ten seconds.
Alive at six years is not failure. Plants sold as decor are bred to look full on the shelf; keeping one going for six years in a flat is the actual achievement.
@leaf_litter_lou · 6mo ago · 2 replies
Houseplants of this kind do not age out on a six year timer - what they do is slowly run down the three things they were given for free at the nursery: root room, light and hard feeding. Yours was grown in a greenhouse under light levels your east window does not approach, pushed with fertiliser, and shipped at its absolute peak, which is why nothing you ever do at home matches day one. Four leaves a year in a pot it has been in for six years is a plant in maintenance mode, not a dying one. Repot up one size, cut it back hard in spring, and give it the brightest spot you have.
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@mulch_mule · 6mo ago
The nursery peak point should be pinned somewhere. Every plant you buy is the best it will ever look, and that is a growing-conditions fact rather than a you problem.
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