hi it's Nell and today I am going to be
talking about one of my very favorite
houseplants now I have lots of
houseplants I love but in terms of care
this one is really easy I love this one
and I love snake plants so many great
varieties and I also love the Zizi plant
so today
those are my three favorites anyway but
to the plant to which I am referring or
of which I am referring I don't mean to
be rude is the ficus elastico or the or
the rubber tree or the or the rubber
plant this variety just happens to be
ficus elastica Decorah so stick around
because i'm going to tell you all about
how to grow it and care for it
it's a beauty you might have heard ficus
and gone Nina but this is the easiest of
the ficus trifecta to maintain and keep
alive it's a snap actually I think but
the ficus benjamina they're weeping fig
as I say it will drop leaves if you look
at it cross-eyed and then there's the
ficus lerato or the fiddly fig which was
very in and very trendy I think it still
is very popular but that when people
have a hard time with but this one I
think is the easiest of the three and
there are quite a few different ficus
elastica you know varieties of them I
had a beautiful one called burgundy it
had him two Dierker leaves almost like a
blackish burgundy green and the new
growth you know coming out the this part
was very deep red and it bit the dust I
went to San Diego for last
June for three weeks to escape the heat
here in Tucson and there was an ant
invasion in my house so fortunately
friends and neighbors have keys so I had
to call on ecological exterminating
company to come in and take care of the
ants because they were so bad you know
crawling all over the place and so the
pest guy mr. pest man discovered a nest
a few nests of ants in my gorgeous ficus
elastica so he drenched it and treated
it and then it got put outside and now
in Tucson in mid-june I think this was
like the third week of June we had the
hottest June on record it was like 110
112 114 my poor ficus fried it made me
very sad but I didn't mourn too long
so this past November I decided to go
out and get myself another bike as
elastica so varieties that I know of
besides Decorah are robusta my old one
which was the burgundy there is one
called Black Prince let's see what else
variegata has some nice cream and it's
leaves and then there's one called Ruby
which has pink and I believe there's a
dwarf dwarf one or two and they're
probably some other varieties too but
those are the ones that I've seen so you
have some choices
I'm gonna start out with size this one
here is about three to four feet it's in
a 10 inch pop the smallest I've ever
seen one is in a have I seen one in the
four inch pot no I've seen them in six
inch pots so this is definitely a floor
plant and I'm trying to remember the
tallest I've ever seen one in a home or
office is about twelve feet tall when I
was in the interior scape trade we put
some in a hotel and they were probably
more like 15 feet but that's a specimen
plant but in nature because these grow
in nature of course you know that's
where they come from and in their native
and environment I should I should say
not nature they grow to be about 60 to
80 feet tall so it truly is a third tree
and in terms of growth rate I have found
them to grow relatively fast relatively
fast too fast not growing so much now
cuz it is the winter time but once once
it starts to warm up they really take
off and grow in terms of exposure this
is definitely a medium to high light
plant it will actually do better in
higher light this is not a low light
plant if you have it in low and lower
light it isn't going to be so easy and
it isn't gonna look good so you want it
in as much light as you can give it
really strong or I should say really
bright natural light but no direct
strong sunlight for a prolonged period
because it will burn I learned that the
hard way
in in terms of watering like any house
plant it depends on the size pot it's in
and if your house is warmer or cooler
there's a lot of factors that go along
with it if there's moss on the top as a
top dressing I've done a post on a post
in a video on house plant watering 101
that you might want to check out the
link will - that will be down below -
but
I water mine about every seven days in
the warmer months but I am warm here
don't forget I'm into it in Tucson and
in the wintertime I'm probably watering
it every 10 to 14 days but mine is in an
east exposure but there are three
windows so it gets a lot of light and we
get a lot of sunshine year long here in
the Arizona desert so you're just gonna
have to adjust it accordingly in the
winter you might want to back off to
once every 14 to 16 days but just check
first and see if your plant is is drying
out because you don't want it to go
completely dry but you don't want it to
stay sopping wet either well look at
this gorgeous foliage close up for a
while you'll see how beautiful and
glossy the new leaves are but now we're
going to move on to temperature as I
always say with houseplants if your home
is comfortable for you
it's gonna be comfortable for your
houseplants also and in terms of
fertilizer what I do is I do worm
castings and compost in the spring just
once a year but if you're not into that
you can just use a balanced liquid
organic house plant fertilizer will do
just fine and you can water that in in
the spring also there I think you can
see the whole plant a little bit better
now there was a late afternoon Sun glare
on the patio table and it was hard to
get the whole thing in there but anyway
moving on to soil oh and these cactus
behind it to the right is a fence post a
cactus I love it it is about probably oh
my gosh I just looked up and noticed
it's about to flower oh it's about
probably 15 or 15 or 20 feet tall oops I
digress I because that's what plants do
to me
soyal so you want a good organic potting
soil anything that drains really well
but that is really rich - that has been
enriched with some some good stuff and
just make sure that it that it is
formulated for house plants in this
potting soil the brand that I am
currently using and I like is happy frog
propagation the the fun part I love to
propagate plants I was gonna show you
air layering on my ficus elastica
burgundy because it was really starting
to spread a lot it was you know starting
to take up a little bit too much real
estate in my dining room but I couldn't
so anyway air layering is a really great
way to propagate this plant but it takes
about at least two months to do that
until the roots are truly formed the
other way that you can propagate it is
from softwood cuttings which is this
part here the the tip here and you can
propagate that in a mix and I'm going to
be repotting this plant soon so I'm
going to do a separate video on
repotting in a couple of months so you
can see that now pest as I say if you
have plants you can assume they are
gonna get some type of pest at some time
and this one I've seen it get infested
with scale and mealy bug and also spider
mite and I have done videos and posts on
all those and what you can do about them
so I will leave the link to those down
below now I'm just something that sounds
just like pests and that's pets well
it's hard to get the the differentiation
in those two words like like I'm talking
about cats
dogs and this plant does submit a SAP
it's why it's called the rubber plant
it's like I think it's used as a as a
latex substitute I believe anyway it
does admit this SAP and it comes out
full-flowing
believe me so it can be irritating to us
too so just you know watch that but it
is irritating to cats and dogs
especially if it gets on their skin or
if they do ingest it so just be aware of
that my cats don't pay any attention to
my plants so I don't have to worry about
that at all boo I had to get up off off
my ankles on it on the tile floor but
most house plants are toxic in some way
to pets and actually I did a post any
video on ones that are safe for them if
you are interested in that the link will
be down below
boy the description box can be full and
just just my thoughts on toxic city and
pets so I will leave more infor
information in the blog post on this
plant as I always do but there just a
few few things that are good to know is
that the roots come out of the pot it's
just how this plant grows I will zoom in
and show you that also if you over
fertilize it can get salt burn on the
edges and it looks like the edges of the
leaves are are burned and what else
oh yes the SAP I was talking about so if
you are propagating it or doing any
pruning just be careful it does not
irritate me but it could irritate you
and definitely be sure to keep it away
from your face now this is something
that I really need to
due to this plant so I want to just pass
it on to you and said it's really good
to keep the leaves clean because it
looks so nice with the leaves clean so
what I do is I just take a moist
lint-free cloth and I wipe off each leaf
and I do that about once or twice a year
so see right there when of vikas's are
growing outdoors they grow these really
large outrageous roots and they get some
of these aerial roots too and these are
pretty much dried up so if they bother
you you can cut them off I just you know
leave them because they don't bother me
but that is what that is so don't be
concerned about that and think oh my god
there's something wrong with the roots
it's just fine it's how the plant grows
I hope you give this fabulous plant to
try oh and another advantage of this
plant is that it's not very expensive at
all I think this one was nineteen
dollars so not bad at all and that's
because they do grow fast plants that
grow slower tend to be more expensive
hmm that makes sense right I hope you
have found this video about the ficus
elastica or the rubber tree to be
helpful I love this plant it's a okay in
my book
I thank you for all your likes and your
subscribes I really appreciate them and
I have a lot more videos coming your way
so many videos if only I could do you
two full time then I could do them all
anyway let's get out in the garden and
make the world a more beautiful place or
into our indoor gardens and I thank you
for all your likes and your subscribes I
really appreciate them and I also thank
you for watching this video and I will
catch you in the
one so have a good one and goodbye