Hello from your Fiddle Leaf Fig! I know you want to care for me, but please understand that my need for water is not a weekly calendar event. My thirst is dictated by a complex mix of factors: the intensity and duration of light I receive, the temperature and humidity of the room, the season, the size of my pot, and the composition of my soil. Watering me every Tuesday because that's what you've been told is a recipe for my roots to either drown in constant sogginess or wither in prolonged drought. To truly understand what I need, you must come down to my level and check the conditions in my home—the soil.
My roots are my lifeline. They are how I drink, eat, and breathe underground. They require a delicate balance of moisture and oxygen. When you pour water, it fills the air pockets between the soil particles. My roots happily drink this up. But if the soil stays wet for too long, those air pockets remain flooded, and my roots literally suffocate. They begin to rot, turning brown and mushy. Once root rot sets in, I can no longer uptake water or nutrients, and my beautiful leaves will droop, yellow, and drop. This is why checking for moisture before you water is the single most important thing you can do for my long-term health.
Using a wooden chopstick is an excellent way for you to gauge the conditions at my root zone without disturbing me too much. Here is what the chopstick tells me when you insert it deep into the pot, near my main stem, and leave it for a minute:
A Dry or Mostly Dry Chopstick: When you pull it out and it looks clean or has only a few dry, dusty particles clinging to it, this is my signal. The moisture has been depleted from the deeper soil layers where most of my roots reside. I am ready for a drink. A thorough watering at this point will quench my thirst and encourage my roots to grow strong and deep.
A Wet or Damp Chopstick: If the chopstick comes out with dark, wet soil stuck to it or feels cool and damp to the touch, please put your watering can down. The soil is still holding plenty of moisture around my roots. Adding more water now would push out the vital oxygen and start the conditions for rot. I am not thirsty yet. Please check again in a few days.
When the chopstick indicates I am dry, please water me correctly. A light sprinkle on the surface does me no good; it only wets the top inch and encourages my roots to grow shallow, making me less stable and resilient. Instead, water me slowly and evenly around the entire surface of the soil until you see water beginning to flow freely out of my pot's drainage hole. This ensures that the entire root ball has been saturated. Allow all the excess water to drain away completely. Never let me sit in a saucer of water, as this will create a swamp at my roots, undoing all the good work of checking with the chopstick.
