The Ficus isn’t just a houseplant, it’s a piece of green architecture! This plant can fill a room with its botanical abundance, or it can be an understated-yet-attention-grabbing addition to a small space. Whatever variety of Ficus you choose, you’ll know that it’ll be a real feature in your home.
How to Grow FicusFlowering time: these plants often don’t flower indoors, but when provided with high enough humidity and enough light, they can produce blooms and even fruit. Location: anywhere with plenty of vertical space to grow. Soil: well-draining, compost-based soil with low acidity. Light: medium to bright, indirect light. Water: in the summer, water when the top two inches of soil should be dry and allow it to completely dry out in the wintertime. Care: fairly easy to care for so long as it is given enough humidity and regular nutrients. |
In the Ficus genus, you’ll find over 900 unique species of plants, each with their own special growth patterns, colorings, and care needs. Many of these plants are most often found in the tropical parts of the world, especially East Asia where their presence and significance is often noted in religious texts of the area. When in the wild, most Ficus often grow into towering trees and together form dense forests that spread for acres. They received their common name, Rubber Tree, both for the waxy and rubbery look of their leaves, but also because the sap in their stems and trunks are used as an ingredient in the rubber we use each day!
Among the hundreds of species of Ficus, only a small handful are especially popular in the houseplant world. One such plant is the Ficus elastica; this particular variety is often loved for its gorgeous, shiny leaves and upright growth structure, but it’s incredibly popular because of the various colors it comes in! If you’re looking for a darker plant, you can opt for the deep green, almost black leaves of the Burgundy, or if you’re feeling colorful, you can find the Ruby with its light pink and dark green variegation. Whatever variety you go with, prepare to give your Rubber Tree plenty of space to grow because they love to get tall and stretch their leaves to catch the sunlight!
Another Ficus species popular not only with plant parents, but interior designers and beginner plant growers is the Ficus lyrata, more commonly known as the Fiddle Leaf Fig. This gorgeous plant is famous and grown indoors around the world for its massive, thick, leathery leaves and loves to grow tall and wide, even as a houseplant. This plant requires slightly more care than its elastica cousin, and if not given the attention it needs, it is known to have its diva moments and shed its leaves from the bottom up until it’s given what it wants: more filtered or distilled water, higher humidity, or a higher concentration of its bi-weekly plant food – unless you can speak plant, you’ll just have to figure out what your Fiddle Leaf Fig needs through trial and error.
Where can you get your own Ficus?
Each species within the Ficus genus is special in its own origin and care needs, but at Pretty Cactus, we carry a wide variety of species and can recommend care requirements and guidelines for each! Every Rubber Tree we bring into our store is hand-picked in small batches for their health, rarity, and beauty by the local nurseries we trust to source from. Because of the unique nature of these plants, we also carry special planters to perfectly showcase any Ficus you bring into your home.
Pretty Cactus Plants (www.prettycactus.co.uk) currently has stock of these fun and quirky houseplants and can be ordered online for direct delivery to your door!
ABOUT PRETTY CACTUS
Pretty Cactus Plants is run by Donna and her lovely team from the shop in Brooke, South Norfolk.
Donna started the business in 2018, growing her passion into a business. She had always been a plant lover, spending hours in the garden centre and DIY stores picking up sad and reduced pants – nursing them back to health. The homegrown plants were sold at country fayres and craft markets. Before long, Donna was so busy she decided to give up her corporate job and run Pretty Cactus as a full-time venture, opening her very first shop and website to sell online.
The Pretty Cactus Plants team now works with a network of growers and distributors in the UK and Holland to source plants, trying whenever possible, to get hold of more unusual cacti, succulents, and houseplants.
Donna and the Pretty Cactus Plants team are always looking for new ways to style plants, displaying these ideas in the shop and on social media. The Pretty Cactus Plants shop has become an inspirational hub for plant lovers near and far who love to visit the store for ideas, plants, pots, and a bit of friendly plant chat, too!
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