How often to water fiddle-leaf fig

The interval

A fiddle-leaf fig is watered about every 8 days in the growing season and about every 14 days in winter, and it is a plant to water by the pot rather than the date. The growing season is spring to early autumn in your own hemisphere, so the northern and southern hemispheres sit on opposite halves of the calendar, and in the short days of winter the same pot takes much longer to dry. The Royal Horticultural Society advises keeping the compost only just moist in winter.

The test is a finger pushed 4 to 5 cm into the compost. The RHS gives a shallower test for ornamental figs, water once the top 2 cm is dry, but this entry keeps to the deeper one because a big pot in a dim room stays wet for a long time, so check rather than assume. Weight is the second check. Lift the pot just after watering and again a few days later, and a pot that is still heavy when the interval is up is not ready.

An overwatered fiddle-leaf fig drops leaves and develops dark soft patches in the middle of the leaves. The RHS says leaf drop is usually due to overwatering, and the NC State plant toolbox describes the plant as sensitive to it. A dry one does the opposite. The edges of the leaves turn dry, crisp and brown, and the leaves can shrivel, which the RHS puts down to dry compost, low humidity or too much sun.

Water from the top, with water at room temperature, which the RHS recommends for figs. Soak until it runs from the drainage holes, then tip away whatever collects underneath. Cold water on the roots of a tropical tree in a cool room contributes to the dark patches.

What is particular to this plant is how it reacts to change. The entry's advice is to choose one spot and stop moving it, and a watering routine altered at the same time as a move, a repot or a spell of cold makes it hard to know what dropped the leaves. Change one thing at a time.

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.