How To Get a Ficus Lyrata Bambino to Branch
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23.04.2022
I have just repotted my ficus lyrata bambino, which is also known as a dwarf variety of fiddle leaf fig. I have had this plant since February 2021, and it was originally a single stem. The tree doubled in height in its first year, but I didn’t like the way it looked as it had developed a lean and looked a bit lanky. I decided to try and get it to branch, and I did this by pruning it – lobbing the top growth off – just above a node with sharp, clean secateurs. I rooted the top cutting in a glass of water, and once the roots were long enough I potted it up alongside the original stem. I had the original stem in a 13cm pot and this big pot is 23cm, which is a bit of a step up. Not wanting the plants to rot, I filled the bottom third of the new pot with large pieces of bark. This gives the pot a false bottom and means it will dry out faster than if I had filled the whole pot with my coco coir, perlite and bark mix. I did my best not to disturb the roots of the original plant because I have read that they don’t like their roots touched. I just lifted it out carefully and repotted it without disturbing the potting medium or the plant’s roots too much.
I thought I would share these photos as I couldn’t find any examples online of other people who had got their ficus lyrata bambino to branch – just regular sized ficus lyrata plants – and I wanted to show that it is possible. The second photo (below) is a close crop of the one above so that you can see the two new growth points as well as where I made the original cut.
