Pls send some tips how to revive a Ficus elastica which root has some parts became soft.. Is this solveable? Thanks. Ann
Take it outside and hose the roots down with high pressure to drive away all soft tissue. Scrub with a plastic dish-washing scubber and/or cut away the rest that is punky. Any trunks that are soft should be cut off below in good, hard tissue. Wash the roots in 20% household bleach in water and put the whole plant in a plastic bag for 24 hours. Repot in ordinary top soil, from a big box, not ~potting soil~ which retains too much water. Thereafter, water once a week or so, only if the soil is dry to the fingertip. The pot needs to have a drainage hole in the bottom. Terracotta is best. It's OK to put that in a fancy jardiniere, but do not add any so-called drainage stuff: broken pots, gravel, etc. Excess water will drain out of the terracotta and be absorbed back into the walls of the terracotta and thus distributed to the whole outsides of the pot and rootball. Gravel or anything that allows the water to just sit in the bottom of a jardiniere will do just that: sit there and stink. Elastica will do just fine if "under-watered", so if you miss for a few days or a week, -no big deal. If it stays wet longer than a week on a regular basis, give it less water when you do. Repot every 5 or 10 years in the same stuff.
Thanks Michogander for your comprehensive input. So pls clarify.. for this ficus, never use a potting soil but throughout just use the top soil variety. I usually just pick up those commercially available ones from stores.
Ack! No, not bagged topsoil! Those kind of products, like this one at Home Depot, are regionally unique, vary massively, and usually contain whatever are the very cheapest local ingredients. Two identical bags could be on different planets as to what they contain, but it's usually always cheap junk not suitable for houseplants. The most common ingredient in all the brands is just plain wood. They usually call it "forest products", but "construction and landscaping waste" would be more accurate. Most commonly it's ground up branches & sticks, not just bark. Plain sand is also a common ingredient. Some may include dirt or peat, but bags marked "Topsoil" NEVER contain topsoil, and you definitely will have no idea what kind of surprise junk ingredients will come in today's bag. I am sorry to contradict you, Michagander, but you do have it exactly backwards. Here are thousands of references to prove it. Commercial topsoil "ranges from native materials removed and trucked from construction sites, to industrial waste products, and to carefully controlled manufactured topsoils," according to Darmody et al. in their 2009 conference paper on the subject. Perhaps it's true in your limited area that one type of bagged topsoil you found held less water than potting soil, but that is really the opposite on the national average. Stay away from bagged "topsoil" for houseplants! I would also not recommend a bleach treatment. 20% bleach is far higher than any reputable author would ever recommend, and the whole idea is counter-productive, since plants rely on mycorrhiza partnerships with fungus in order to maximize nutrient uptake from the soil. Fungus is good, you don't need to kill it, just stop the overwatering conditions. Clay pots are a great idea for mushy roots, and I sure agree for the reasons mentioned. I would just repot into any good quality houseplant soil (nothing from a big box store) with perhaps 25% extra added perlite, plant in a clay pot just barely big enough, wait to water until it's dry, and NEVER let it sit in water. Also raise the light and humidity as much as possible. Letting a plant sit in water combined with low light is the most common cause of root rot in houseplants.
I respectfully disagree. "Potting soil" contains a large fraction of ground up cardboard and newspaper, not wood, and with damn little mineral fraction, often not even stated. The difference is night and day. Perhaps, Top Soil is entirely regionally defined and I'm lucky to live in Michigan which has both good soils and specific definitions for what goes in a bag. Top soil is what used to be scraped off building sites and sold as such. Michigan law doesn't allow that anymore on residential lots. Native soil must be returned, not "restored" on residential sites. I use big box top soil which looks pretty good here with equal parts Pine Bark Soil Conditioner, plus 2% charcoal dust, .05% Jersey Green Sand and Menefee Humate. Too complex for the average 1 plant home owner. The only commercial potting soil I've seen that's worth anything is orchid mix.
