The first things that come to mind when talking about ficus elastica care are watering the plant every 1-2 weeks, making sure the soil is dry before watering, providing adequate sunlight, etc. In today’s blog post I will discuss how to care for ficus elastica.
This flowering plant is universally appreciated for decorating the house by its beauty. Its thick, shiny, glossy leaves exude striking and eye catchy beauty. Botanical name of the Ficus elastica plant is the Rubber plant.
Rubber is made from the latex of the large Ficus elastica or rubber plant. But many of its varieties are planted as houseplants. Today’s blog post is about how to take care of the plant after planting it at home. So now check out how to care for a Ficus elastica plant at Home.
Benefits and uses of a Ficus elastica plant
Ficus elastica is a plant that grows well indoors as well as outdoors. Now you will know the benefits and various uses of Ficus elastica.
Improve air quality
Ficus elastica plants can absorb or eliminate the chemicals, toxins and harmful substances from the air of your house. It purifies the air in your room and keeps your room environment very soft and mild. It also absorbs carbon dioxide from the air and supplies oxygen, thus maintaining the air quality in your house.
Decorating the house
This plant is an ornamental plant that can decorate your home or office with its glossy, thick and shiny leaves and its beautiful flowers. This plant is widely available and popular as a decorative houseplant.
Making Rubber
Ficus elastica tree produces milky and white latex that has to be separated from the sap. After separating the white milky latex from the sap, it is stored in different cells. This latex is used for making rubber. Latex is the commercial source of making rubber, produced by the ficus elastica plant.
Health benefits of ficus elastica or rubber plant
The anti-inflammatory properties in the leaves of the rubber plant help reduce inflammation and rashes on your skin. The plant has analgesic properties, its roots can be used to treat rheumatic pain and can also relieve gum or toothache or tooth inflammation.
How to care of a Ficus elastica
Ficus elastica plant is known as a popular house decoration plant that is felicitated worldwide. This plant is very easy to care for and requires little maintenance to grow. In order for the plant to grow very well at home, it is necessary to follow some simple care rules. Here are some simple and easy to follow caring rules for Ficus elastica plants. Let’s learn how to care for a Ficus elastica plant.
Watering the plants properly
Watering the plants properly is essential for any plants. All varieties of Ficus elastica plants drink quite a lot of water. When you water your Ficus, make sure that the entire root ball is soaked in water. Just pour a lot of water through the pot. But use drainage holes, because access water can damage your plants. When preparing the tub for planting ficus, make some small holes in the bottom of the tub. So that all of the access water can drain away.
After inserting your fingers into the top at least one inch or two and a half centimeters of the soil, if it appears that the soil has started to dry out, then it’s time to soak the entire root ball again.
Get rid of yellow leaf
If your Ficus elastica starts to get yellow leaves and usually it’s the oldest leaves meaning the leaves that are down by or near by the soil, that means you have not water your plants enough. Don’t give more water, just increase the frequency with new waters.
So make sure that you fill the soil as soon as it starts to get dry on top of the soil, you add water again. Increase the frequency, not the amount of water you give.
Give adequate and proper sunlight
This is a Ficus elastica plant, so the recommendation is to place it in a location in your house where it will get or receive a lot of indirect sunlight. If you search on the internet for where to place your Ficus elastica plant? You will probably find that you should place your plant where it gets lots of indirect sunlight, but you should not place it in direct sunlight because it will burn or scorch the leaves of your plants.
My experience is actually that it likes to be placed somewhere, where it gets a little bit of sunlight during the day. Therefore, this plant should not be placed near the window, where the sun shines for long periods of the day.
Prune your plants for better growth
Don’t be afraid to prune your ficus electrica plant. You can prune this plant almost all year around, but I would not recommend you to prune during winter because it goes a little dormant in that times. Except winter any of time of the year pruning works perfectly.
If you just go and prune or cut off in between two leaves, the buds getting activated and stems will branch out perfectly. Also if you prune during spring or autumn when the plant is active, you can have a lot of buds getting activated at the same time, so the stems will start to branch out and become more beautiful and large.
White milky sap comes out during pruning which causes allergic reaction in many people, so always use hand gloves when pruning.
Keep the leaves of your Ficus elastica plant clean and tidy
The beauty of the leaves of Ficus elastica has made it popular as an indoor plant worldwide. All varieties of Ficus elastica plant have large, glossy, shiny, thick green smooth and really nice leaves.
To maintain the beauty of this tree, it is important to keep its leaves clean. A simple tip for cleaning its leaves is that, every month you take any type of clothes, soake this cloth in water and rinse off or wipe off the leaves.
Because since you have huge and large leaves of your Ficus, all of the dust is going to fall on the leaves or it can be other types of particles. Then you will see that the leaves start to look a little bit shaded.
Now if you want them to look really lash, really stand out and be shiny, just take your water soaked cloth and wipe off the leaves. And instantly you will get that really nice shine again to the leaves.
As an added bonus, when you rinse off or wipe off your plant’s leaves once a month, you will also notice if any pests have attacked your plants. When you wipe off the top side of the leaves take a look on the bottom, as usually the pests attack and live on the under side of the leaves.
If you are a beginner or new gardener and have just planted a new Ficus elastica plant, there is nothing to fear. If you follow these simple tricks and tips about how to care for a Ficus elastica that I have discussed today, you can easily grow your Ficus Elastica tree.
