Rising from the ashes

Jul 17, 2024 • Yousef Amar • 1 min read • Parent project

It's frightening how close I keep getting to killing my ficus -- they're supposed to be hardy! An update is long overdue.

First off, I moved the UV LEDs into an IKEA greenhouse. This made things much tidier and I have room for the upcoming project. The ficus had some strong growth up and to the left, all but touching the glass.

I also got these wooden drawers that you can kind of see in the back, with each one dedicated to a different project. The bottom one (taking up the whole width) is the horticulture one as that needs the most space.

Early May, I noticed that the leaves were getting brown. I thought it might be because the humidity is too high, so I thought I'd air it our a bit. Overnight it shrivelled up completely.

I was heartbroken and went to /r/Bonsai for advice. The only response I got was "it dried out and died". I did my best to try and get the humidity right and crossed my fingers. Almost two weeks later, I was delighted to see that it was still alive and had sprouted a new leaf! Can you see it?

And now, two months later, look at all this foliage!

I do plan to remove the dead leaves, but I wanted to wait for it to be a little stronger before I remove the glass again and whack things out of balance.