 What's going on everyone? Welcome back to the channel. So today we're going to talk about the rubber plant or Ficus Elastica, which is actually one of my favorite houseplants. I mean just look at these leaves. It's insane. It looks sort of like someone took a plant leaf and just did some water color on it. I know cut to a closer of this, but number one, yes, this is the same plant that people use to actually create rubber. They use the sap from the rubber tree to process into actual industrial commercial rubber. And also in the wild, this plant can grow easily upwards of a hundred feet tall. But as an indoor houseplant, of course, we don't want to deal with that. We can't deal with that. And it'll grow basically according to how you prune it. So let's go ahead and get into how to deal with the rubber plant. Rubber trees like bright indirect light. And what that means is that you're going to want to place it somewhere near a window. So you can see my window right here, but not right next to it. Although you can place the full green varieties directly in the sun near a window. If you do that with a variegated variety, it's probably going to get a bit of burn, which you can actually see right there. Or you might actually just lose the variegation. And I don't know about you, but this is so beautiful. I do not want to lose that color. One thing you might notice with your plants in general, but especially the rubber tree is that they're going to bend towards the light. And if you want to counteract that, one thing you can do, so what you can see here is mine has put a lot of leaves out on this right side of the plant. And there's not a lot over here. And the reason why is because its normal location is right down there. And so sun's coming in from this angle, and there's really nothing coming in from this side. And so what you can do is then switch it. So rotate it. If I was to leave this here for about a month or so, you'd see this start to straighten out. You'd see it start to throw leaves out in this direction, the left direction. And you get in much more even looking plant. But of course, that's only if you care about it. That's just a fun little tip that I'm sure you probably already knew about, but I figured I would share with you anyways. When it comes to the soil that you're going to use for your rubber tree or your rubber plant, any general purpose potting mix is going to be good. Except for the fact that you may want to add some rocks or some gravel to the bottom of your pot, just so you have adequate drainage. Of course, you're going to need to make sure that you have a drainage hole, which you can see right there. There's vaguely. Because if you don't, one of the most common problems with the rubber tree and a bunch of other house plants is the fact that they get overwatered. And then the root ball that sits below this stem here is sitting soaked in water. And it effectively is just going to, number one, be deprived of oxygen. And number two, be very susceptible to all sorts of root-borne pathogens that do well in an overly soaked environment. Now, one thing I see a lot of people do is they will clean off the leaves of their rubber tree. So what you'll do is you'll just take a moistened towel and just give it a nice little brush. And what you're doing there is you're just actually rubbing off the dust. And what that means is that the plants' cells actually receive more light and they're able to photosynthesize just slightly better. It's not some crazy increase. And that means that, you know, there's more energy going into the plant. The plant's able to process more of the sun's energy and use it for its own growth. Now, again, this is more, to be honest, a cosmetic thing for us as the owner of the plant. I personally like the way that it looks when it's a bit shiny. But, you know, there are some tiny botanical benefits to it as well. And as you can see, this plant that I'm cleaning off here has had a little bit of damage. It's something that I picked up from a farmer's market. And it's clearly just a neglected cutting that they sold for pretty cheap. I believe I got this variety for about $7, which is a crazy steal when it comes to rubber tree that's like this at least. One of these very gated varieties. So I just gave it a nice little wipe down. And as you can see, it already looks a little bit brighter. Let's imagine that you have a beautiful rubber tree plant kind of like this one right here. And you want more of it, but you don't necessarily want to pay for it. So how do you go ahead and propagate a rubber tree? Well, the best way to do it is going to be via process known as air layering. And what air layering means is that you're going to find a healthy, leafing part of the branch. So let's imagine I just wanted to air layer right here. What you do is you'd make a cut on the stem below that halfway into the stem. And then you'd use a toothpick soaked in rooting hormone to spear that cut sideways and hold it open. So it's imagine if I cut right there, you put a toothpick in just to hold that cut open. Then you'd wrap that cut in a ball of peat moss. Usually lightly wet spagging in peat moss, wrap that entire thing in plastic loosely, and then wrap that in aluminum foil to keep the light out. And what you're doing there is you are cutting into an area where the plant still has stem cells, which basically are undifferentiated cells. And they can become anything. And so if given the opportunity with an open wound and rooting hormone and a nice growing medium around them, what they're going to do is they're going to turn into root cells and develop a nice root ball. And you'll have effectively a little mini root ball right here. And what you can do then is cut underneath. And then take this entire new cutting and put into a new pot. And voila, you have another rubber tree. Now the rubber tree is a pretty hardy plant overall as well as pretty hardy house plant. But you're going to deal with some common pests that affect almost all house plants. And that's going to be aphids, melee bugs, any type of scale insect. And really the best way to prevent this is simply to notice that it's happening. So this is a pretty easy plant to scan. You'll want to look at the underside of the leaves, at the upper side of the leaves. Maybe a little bit harder to tell if you have a variegated variety. But give your plants a scan every now and then and see if you notice any of those bugs. And if you do, one simple way to prevent it is just to wipe them off with rubbing alcohol. If you have let it get a little bit too far and you've got a crazy infestation, you may want to cut off some of the most affected leaves or branches. And then apply an organic insecticide. Now disease wise, on the plus side, rubber trees are resistant to most known plant diseases. They don't really suffer from a lot of the common ones that you're going to deal with on other house plants, which is great because a lot of these house plants, I don't know about you, but I've had some trouble with diseases in the past. The only thing you're going to run into with the rubber plant is if you do overwater it. And I already talked about that in this video, but if you overwater this, you're going to get root rot or a variety of other soil borne or stagnant water borne pathogens that are going to destroy the root fall. And of course, if the roots are dead on the plant, there's no ability for that plant to uptake nutrients and water. And then the plant itself dies. So as long as you don't overwater it, which means either not watering too much your own fault or not using a soil that retains too much water. So you want a standard, well-drained and potting mix. Don't put it in coconut core. Don't put a ton of peat moss in there. That's going to hold on to water that we do not want. And then finally, of course, use a drainage hole on the bottom of your pot. And maybe if you do feel that it's going to hold on to too much water even still, maybe put a layer of gravel or rocks at the bottom just to make sure that water can actually get out of that drainage hole. Other than that, disease-wise, the rubber tree plant is pretty hardy.