Grow Your Own Fig Tree
If you've been following along with my IG stories for a while, chances are you've probably seen me trying to propagate a few new fig trees from a couple of cuttings I took about 10 weeks ago. Any time I post to my stories about my fig cuttings I get SO many messages and questions so today I thought I'd share how I've started to grow my own fig trees, the steps I took & where things are at right now. Let's call this Grow Your Own Fig Tree - Part One.
To start, I made four cuttings - finding 3 individual leaves and one double leaf that I could emotionally handle cutting off of my fig tree haha. You have to understand, I have to work VERY HARD to keep my plants alive so the thought of cutting a bunch of leaves off of my beautiful fig tree took me a little while to work up the nerve to do. I had read lots that a single leaf cutting takes about twice as long to grow new leaves as a double leaf cutting but there was only one spot where I felt like I could cut off a double leaf without making my tree look too sparse but there were quite a few places I could cut a single leaf off.
Use a sharp pair of scissors and make a clean cut at the base of the stem. You'll notice a milky liquid will come out of the cutting, that's okay! Once you've got your cutting, place in a jar or glass or dish with room temperature water. And then we wait. And wait, and wait some more. In the first few weeks you'll start to notice a few water roots sprouting. These will look like little bubbles stuck to the base of your cutting - this means it's working! Then over the weeks you'll get to watch as your roots grow.
*Note: for my first four cuttings I didn't use any rooting agent. I started another cutting yesterday and used Wilson Liquid Root Stimulator that I picked up from Home Depot. It's totally not necessary but I'll be interested to see if I notice any difference between my first set of cuttings that I didn't use it on, vs this more recent cutting where I did. Stay tuned for Part Two for those thoughts ;)
Now to be honest, I waited longer than I had planned to before potting my rooted cuttings. I probably would have planted mine after about 7/8 weeks but by the time I had the time to get around to it, it was about 10 weeks since I put my cuttings in water to root. In that time I only changed the water twice, and only when it got really murky.
When it came time to potting, I used an indoor premium potting soil mix that I picked up at home depot and panted two cuttings per pot in an 8" pot from Home Depot as well. I then used a pump of Miracle Grow Indoor Plant Food and watered the soil. Now, we play the waiting game again to see how long it will take for them to sprout new leaves.
New leaves pop up quite often on my fig tree but as I've read, it takes quite a while for the first leaf to grow off of a new cutting. I'll be posting updates along the way and keeping you posted if my cutting using the root stimulator grows any faster than the previous ones.
Here's a few other tips for propagating a new fig from a cutting
-Place the cuttings in sunlight - I have mine on my bar cart next to my window that gets lots of light
- When you change the water, make sure it's room temperature water and let it sit out a day before transferring. When I'd swap out my water I'd fill a mason jar with water, let it sit out overnight then place the cutting into it the next day
-Check your water levels often. Although I only fully swapped out the water in my cuttings twice, I had to top up the water levels LOTS!
So there you go, a few of my tips for growing a fig tree from a leaf! Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below and follow along as I share updates over the coming weeks and months!
