I just bought a 6 inch hanging basket one, on clearance. Please tell me about your experience with this plant. I don't have much trust in googling for info except from universities and seems they want to talk about outdoor ficus on walls.

Other than the hardy fig, members of the genus pretty much all like the same cultural conditions. Temps 70-78, humidity above 50%, a fast draining medium you can flush (when watering) w/o worry the soil will stay soggy too long, *bright sun, regular applications of fertilizer .... I have about 40 Ficus covering about 12 -15 species and they all respond very well to Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 fertilizer. One thing different about this plant is, it will not tolerate being allowed to dry down completely. Other species will either tolerate it for a short period or drop their leaves but recover. Pumila will just die on you; however, that doesn't mean they will tolerate being overly wet - they won't. If you plan on growing them in a tree form, they take a very long time to form a trunk, compared to others that share the genus.
Al


* Ficus appreciate and can be conditioned to tolerate full indoor sun insofar as the photo load goes, but they sometimes cannot tolerate the passive solar gain (heat build-up) in leaves that comes with it unless there is a fan in the room to disrupt the boundary layer of air surrounding and insulating leaves.

Great info.
Yes, mine is struggling, I exposed it to cooler temps earlier, and I fear I've let it get too dry at times. The texture of the tiny leaves is such, it is hard to tell if they are live or recently dead.
But we'll see!

I haven't grown Creeping Fig (Ficus pumila 'Variegata') in many years but I've killed a couple over the years; one drowned because it was left outside during a week or more of daily, very heavy rains and another died one year when I was out of town for extended periods when my mom was ill, that one was on my back porch and shriveled up and died from not getting watered for a long time.

I have this plant but haven't become friends with it. There's a few sprigs in pots that don't seem to grow, just stay the same size. I put the mama plant in the ground where it gets a little direct sun in the morning, and it doesn't grow much either. I should take a pic of that because it might be killed next week. 2 nights @ 20° predicted.

I'm sensing that much like Hedera helix, it can be very happy outside in nature but seem fussy to us in pots.
Thanks for the comments!

Glad to respond but since I didn't have anything helpful to say, that's why I tried to hang back and see if you got anything more substantial. My ground plant is next to some brick patio pavers and it has attached some roots to that, which is the most interesting thing it has done.

I took pics of what I have. Surprisingly, most of the ground plant feels/looks OK. A little frostbite on the most exposed parts. Looks like it's trying to revert to non-variegated.



This is the a sprig that is stuck, it does nothing. I think there are a couple others. If I "find" them, I'll take their pics.

Sally, thanks for directing me here.
Today I bought my first ficus pumila. Actually two because they're so small. I'll grow them as a houseplant in one pot. I hope they're fast growers.

Good luck, Deeby
Mine is putting on some new growth, indoors of course.

Thanks. I hope mine get as big as yours. They're tiny. And 5 bucks each????? I didn't notice until the receipt came out of the Walmart self checkout and then it was an I'm too tired to care moment.

Give it lots of light and don't let it dry out completely. If it is right in a South or West facing window it can take moister conditions. Where you are it will grow outside year-round in part shade to almost full sun. It is one of the slowest Ficus species.

Thank you. I'm going to put them in with an indoor palm. Since you've said that they're slow growing the palm tree should be OK.

I made sure to water mine more often and it seemed to help it recover. It's still sparse but I draped the stems back over the middle to make it look better

My ground plant is still alive.

This one in a pot is trying to revert.

2 individuals in another pot. Looks like 1 is contemplating a reversion also.



I have no idea what this plant is up to. The bit in the ground doesn't appear to have any proclivities toward trying to climb anything, but has attached roots to walkway pavers. If it keeps growing so slowly, it will be years before I feel like we're on a first-name basis.

A better pic of that pot.

This is the plant from the blue pot (2/25.) This is not a pot, it's chicken wire lined with window screen. The previous tenants have been moved to ground for the season, and the blue pot was only temporary for winter, so I wondered if F. pumila might like this arrangement better than a regular pot. I thought for a few mins about combining it with a Hoya but having 2 plants with which I'm not comfortable together in a pot seemed too daunting.

The rocks are holding a couple stems in contact with the soil surface.

I took the rocks off today and the stems stayed down.



I'm wondering if this would climb on a board.

It sounds like it wants to climb anything. I think I saw it in person on a wall in Florida.
I'm searching for something to let the fig climb in an indoor pot. I may still have a ceramic house that's lost all its paint. Maybe I'll try that, and one of my little blue gnomes from Target.