Are Your Ficus Trees Getting Enough Wind?
Not your typical indoor gardening advice
Ficus trees are low-maintenance houseplants that can flourish indoors with humans. They need good natural light, the right vibes coming from the humans and a routine watering schedule. I have sadly known people who kill ficus trees by over-watering them. Pick a day of the week and water your ficus friend on that day every week — and only on that day. Once a week watering; no more, no less. The ficus roots need to dry out and breathe between waterings. And this, by the way, is a good reason to plant your ficus child in a clay pot. But to tell you the truth, if a ficus tree is happy it will grow in just about any container.
For a ficus tree to be happy it needs four things. Its roots need to be able to breathe. It needs abundant natural, organic light — in other words, it needs to be near a window. They cannot take too much direct sunlight (much like some people I know) but they need the natural light of a window. This keeps them connected to the natural rhythms of the planet. I have noticed that ficus trees, like cats, will sit for hours just staring out the window. They remind me of me when I was a kid.
The third thing ficus trees need is love mojo. Human love mojo is like catnip to ficus trees. They love it and respond. If you are struggling to bring a ficus tree back to health, try this: Take three long, deep breaths while flushing all thoughts out of your noggin. Become an empty vessel. Then cup the palms of your hands around the base of the trunk of the tree, keeping them about an inch or two from touching the tree. Visualize love mojo spewing out of the palms of your hands into the tree. Keep it going for a few minutes then very slowly begin to move your hands up the trunk of the tree, projecting love mojo while you do so. When you get to branches turn your hands and move them further apart, continuing to let the love mojo to stream out of the palms of your hand into the plant. Move your hands up around the entire tree until they reach the top of the tree. When done, flip the palms of your hands upwards, releasing any love mojo that is left into the sky and universe. To the ficus trees this is like a deep-tissue massage. They love it! It is profoundly uplifting and rejuvenating. My ficus trees ask me for this all the time.
You can water your ficus-mate correctly and you can let it live by a window and you can inundate it with love mojo, but there is still one more thing that ficus trees need to be really happy… They need good air circulation! They need wind. A ficus tree can have all of the first three things that they need but if they are sitting in a spot where they never get any wind they get depressed. That is another reason to let them live near a window. They love it when you open the window to let in a fresh breeze. I have a small eight-inch plastic fan that I sometimes turn on and direct towards the ficus trees. I will keep it going for half an hour or so. This is very stimulating to the trees. It gets their chi moving and it also strengthens their trunks and branches to support continued growth. They absolutely love it. It keeps them happy.
There is one more thing to mention about ficus trees. They are very social beings. They like to be around other ficus trees. I have noticed that ficus trees growing alone are never as happy, healthy and vibrant as ficus trees growing in groups. I have eleven ficus trees in my apartment (what some people call, “The Jungle.”) and they are in groups of 3, 3, and 5. So do not just have one lone ficus tree in your home. Put a few of them together near a window and the vibrations of your home will increase and both you and the trees will be healthier and happier.
Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved. This article was originally published in May of 2016 and has been minimally tweaked and recycled.
Speaking of trees, you might like this crazy story: