Ficus love bright, indirect sunlight and lots of it. Your plant will enjoy spending time outside during the summer, but protect the plant from direct sunlight unless it's been acclimated to it. During winter, keep your plant away from drafts and don't allow it to stay in a room that falls below 55-60 degrees F.
“With the right care, a ficus tree can live for about 20 years.â€
Oak, pine, spruce and fir trees also love acidic soil. (Most edible plants like acidic soil, but some plants, such as eucalyptus, ficus, chrysanthemum and clematis, prefer alkaline soil). Used coffee grounds make an effective and fast-acting fertilizer for plants and vegetables.
The 'Weeping Fig' or 'Ficus tree' is a popular houseplant that purifies the air around you which is why it is in the top 7 air purifying plants. Ficus Benjamina was found to be effective at cleansing the air of formaldehyde, xylene and toluene in NASA's study.
Popularly known as fig trees, ficus plants become great houseplants. They're easy to grow and maintain if they're grown in the right manner. These medium to large-sized ornamental plants also help in improving the air quality indoors.
Full-Sized Ficus Trees Grow Rapidly in Size
Ficus trees have a fast rate of growth, and can quickly sprout within a brief period of time. A Ficus tree typically reaches approximately 25 feet in height within only 10 years and will continue to grow to 70 feet within a 40-year time span.Ficus (Ficus benjamina) is commonly grown indoors, but it can grow up to 60 feet tall when grown outdoors in U.S. Department of Agricultural plant hardiness zones 10b to 11. Ficus is much easier to control when kept as a potted plant. It can be used as a hedge, topiary or a focal point tree.
Ficus benjamina
| Size | Price |
|---|
| 3 to 4 Feet Tall | $59.95 |
Most ficus trees enjoy bright indirect or filtered light with variegated varieties happily able to take medium light. Bright, direct light may result in scalding of the leaves and leaf loss. Ficus trees also cannot tolerate low temperatures or drafts.
The ficus tree prefers and average temperature of 65 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit, making it a great container plant for outdoor patios. Damage to the ficus tree can occur at 30 to 35 degrees, limiting its outdoor life in the landscape to places with an average winter temperature above 35 degrees Fahrenheit.
Ficus Tree Root Problems
The Ficus tree's root system is very invasive. Merely planting this tree without any guidance can later lead to buckling pavement on driveways, streets, curbs, and damaged underground utilities and drains.If you grow a ficus outdoors, it grows most quickly when it's in full sun for at least part of each day, and slows its growth rate if sited in partial or full shade. Whether a houseplant or an outdoor plant, you can help boost the growth rate of a plant in low light by moving it into brighter light.
You can pinch the growth out on the lower branches to divert energy to the main leader, but you'll need to allow some lower growth to develop a solid trunk, and prevent leggy growth. Think of it like a miniature tree in a yard, where the main leader goes up, and as it gets taller, you trim the bottom out.
Note: The Baby Rubber Plant's larger cousin, the Rubber Tree (or Ficus benjamina), is actually toxic to dogs and cats. According to the ASPCA, contact with the skin can cause dermatitis, while ingestion can cause oral irritation, salivation and vomiting.
How to Care for Outdoor Ficus Trees
- Give your tree at least 6 hours of full sunlight each day.
- Replace the soil every 3 years if you grow your tree in a container.
- Water deeply at least every 1 to 2 weeks.
- Fertilize during the growing stages in spring and summer.
- Pruning should only be done in the first 1 to 2 years.
benjamina) is popularly grown as a houseplant, but it will thrive if planted outdoors within U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 10 through 12. With proper planting and care, your ficus tree might even bloom and produce fruit, which is rare when grown indoors.
There are four types of fig, but only common figs are recommended for Florida, as these trees do not require pollination for fruit production. When choosing your common fig tree, look for cold-hardy cultivars adapted for the south. Three recommended cultivars are 'Celeste', 'Brown Turkey', and 'Ischia'.
With its glossy leaves and light gray trunk, the ficus tree, or weeping fig, is a pretty, graceful plant that's been popular for decades. It's usually sold as a small tree or bush, up to about 6 feet tall, though in the wild, it can grow up to 60 feet tall with branches draping toward the ground.
The best varieties for Florida are Celeste, brown turkey, Green Ischia, and Jelly. Figs can grow to about 15 feet tall and just as wide in Florida conditions. They are a deciduous tree and can produce fruit twice in the same year.
Closely related to the common Fig tree, ficus trees are widely used as privacy hedges in Southern California. Ficus nitida grows into a 25 to 30 foot evergreen tree with a 35 to 40 foot spread when fully-grown. The dense foliage creates immense amounts of shade and privacy.
One of the best indoor-outdoor container trees for Central Florida is, without a doubt, the ficus. The plant is quite forgiving. Also, the plant will shed its leaves from time to time, particularly when moved to a new place. The ficus is easily the most widely grown container plant in Florida, if not the country.
For warmer and inland climates, the usual harvest time is between June and September. In some tropical locations, fig trees may bear some fruit throughout the year, with increased production in early summer and midwinter.
To fertilize your fig trees, give them a slow release fertilizer that's well-balanced, like formula 10-10-10 or 8-8-8, once in the spring and once in the fall.
Strangler fig begins its life as a parasite as its seed lodges in the cracks and crevices of the bark of a host. The seed germinates and sends out air roots. These air roots take in nutrients and water from the air and host tree.
Although the strangler fig (Ficus aurea) is native to South Florida, Kirsten Albrecht Llamas, author of "Tropical Flowering Plants" and a resident of Miami, says that it still can attain an invasive tendency in garden settings. This eventually finds the strangler fig much larger and dominating.
The fruit of the Florida strangler fig is edible and has been used as a food source by both early settlers in Florida as well as by indigenous people of the area. Its latex was actually used to make chewing gum, and its aerial roots were used to make fishing lines, bowstrings, arrows, and lashings.
Mimosa pudica is well known for its rapid plant movement.
Species: ssp. Hundreds of animals like pigeons, parrots, hornbills, toucans, monkeys, gibbons, and fruit-eating bats, feed on the sweet fruit of the fig tree.
But its reproduction is limited by a mutual evolutionary pollination relationship with the gall wasp. The fruits (figs) of the ficus tree grow in clusters on short stems that spring directly from the tree trunk. Each fig has a tiny hole, an entrance just large enough for the female gall wasp, full of eggs, to enter.
They are easy to identify because the lower part of their trunks more or less look like what you see at the right: The bark is gray and smooth, and the "roots" seem to melt into one another and flow around rocks. The reason for the strange trunk is that strangler figs begin their lives on the branches of other trees.
Fig trees have no blossoms on their branches. The blossom is inside of the fruit! Many tiny flowers produce the crunchy little edible seeds that give figs their unique texture. Figs are harvested according to nature's clock, fully ripened and partially dried on the tree.
