Burgundy Rubber Tree Summer Sunlight Experiment

 

Since this is the first summer I’m really putting a majority of my plants outside, I decided I would do a little test to see how much unfiltered sunlight makes a difference in plant growth. 

Ficus trees are known to thrive with bright light so I decided to test it out with my Burgundy Rubber Trees. 

I got both plants in a single pot about a month ago. They were the exact same size and had the same amount of leaves (I recently cut a few off the one staying inside because I was worried about a fungal infection – false alarm though). Since bringing them home, I split them into two ceramic pots (I recently switched one of them to terracotta since I was planning on putting that one outside) they’ve been sitting under a grow light next to eachother, so they’ve been exposed to the same environment. 

Both plants have gotten 1 new leaf since I brought them home. Well, one is still unfurling, but the other plant got a new leaf about a week ago, so they’re pretty in line with growth at this point. 

The plan is to put one outside in a few days when the weather is going to stay warm enough, and keep the other one inside under a grow light. The plant going outside will start in shade, on a south facing porch, until it is acclimated. I eventually hope to get it into full sun before the end of the summer. I’m interested to see if the plant that goes outside sees significantly more growth than the plant that is inside. 

Both plants will get watered with FoliagePro each time it’s watered and are both currently in a chunky mix soil (1 part orchid bark, 1 part potting mix, 1 part pertlite) and I’m even thinking I’ll switch the plant that will be indoors to the same size terracotta pot as the one going outside so the conditions will be exactly the same, with the exception of sunlight, temperature, and humidity. 

I’m excited to see the results and will post updates every few weeks! 

What do you think? Have you seen significant growth when plants go outside for the summer vs the ones you kept inside? 

Ficus Elastica “Rubber Tree” Plant Care

 

There are a ton of varieties of Rubber Trees, but the ones I have seen most commonly in homes include the

Red Ruby

Tineke

Burgundy

Propagating a Donkey Tail Plant

 Sedum Morganianum, burro’s-tail, donkey tail, whatever you’d like to call it, it’s one of the cutest succulents and one of my favorite succulents. 

I got two baby donkey tail plants this winter and it hasn’t shown much growth until a few weeks ago when the spring weather started to rear it’s head. 

I decided it was a good time to try to propagate and see if I could grow a few more so I could eventually pot up the plant and fill it out for a fuller, bushier plant. 

I haven’t had much luck propagating succulents in the past, but surprisingly this time around was a success! 

I started by gently removing some of the lower leaves and Putting them in a 2in grower pot with damp soil. 

I covered the top of the pot with saran plastic wrap to keep the moisture in and encourage root growth, then stuck the pot under a grow light. Every couple of days I would check on them and if the soil seemed to be getting too dry I’d spritz the top with some water.

Within about a week, roots started to grow and a few weeks after that I started to see some baby leaves sprout.

Eventually I moved the leaves to a larger pot and removed the plastic wrap, but I’m keeping them under a grow light until there’s a little more growth. I’ve been continuing to spritz them every few days to keep the top soil moist. 

Once they’ve grown a bit more I’ll pot them with the mother plants and hopefully they’ll continue to take off from there. I’ll post an update in a few weeks to show how they’ve been doing!