How often to water weeping fig

The interval

A weeping fig is watered about every 8 days in the growing season and about every 15 days in winter. Growing season means the warm, bright months from spring to early autumn, roughly March to September in the northern hemisphere and September to March in the southern. Winter is the cold, short-day part of your own year. The Royal Horticultural Society says plants in a cool room need water less often than plants in a warm one, and a weeping fig that is cold and in low winter light uses very little, so the second number is the longer one.

Test by finger and by weight before you trust either. Push a finger 3 to 4 cm into the compost and water when it is dry at that depth. The RHS advises checking the pot instead of watering on a routine, and says drier pots feel lighter than wet ones, so lift the pot as well, and compare it with how it felt the day you last watered.

Water from the top until water runs from the drainage holes, wait ten minutes and empty the saucer. Use water at room temperature, because the RHS warns that cold water can kill. NC State Extension puts the whole method in a sentence: water just often enough to keep the soil from completely drying out.

Both mistakes look the same from across the room, which is the problem. Too much water and too little water each make a weeping fig drop leaves, and the RHS links yellowing leaves that fall with overwatering and wilting or dropping foliage with dry compost. Look at the compost, not the leaves. Damp and dark compost with yellow leaves points to a wet pot, while compost that is pale, light and shrunk away from the pot points to a dry one.

What is particular to this plant is that watering is rarely the reason. NC State Extension notes that a weeping fig may drop leaves if it is moved, and a draught, a cold night or a repot do the same, because the plant replaces its leaves to suit a new light level. Before you change the watering, ask whether anything else has changed in the last month. Change one thing, then give it a month to settle.

Related guides

How to tell whether a plant actually needs water

The finger, the weight, the leaf and the pot. Four ways to read a plant's thirst, and what overwatering actually is.

Rescuing an overwatered plant

How to tell overwatering from underwatering, how much root damage is recoverable, and the exact rescue steps once compost has stayed wet too long.

Watering through a southern winter

Winter in the southern hemisphere runs June to August, and houseplants drink far less then. How to read the soil, and why overwatering is the bigger risk.