How to Care for a Ficus Tineke and Maintain Its Best Look
Many people love to grow colorful flowers to add the spring atmosphere into their space, but some prefer the simple and elegant appearance of Ficus Tineke. With different shades of leaves, Tineke can be found in many workplaces, dining rooms, or living rooms as a way to increase the green space.
Just like any other plant, Ficus Tineke’s leaves can become dull and dry if not properly cared for. During this blog, we will help you understand more about this plant’s origin, what factors it needs to grow well, and what you should do to keep its fresh look alive.
Table of contents
What Is Ficus Tineke?
Originally from Southeast Asia, Ficus Tineke is a variety of Ficus elastica and has many strange variegated rubber plants. This gorgeous indoor plant is well-known for its thick, shiny leaves with green, white, and pink variegation. In general, Ficus Tineke is quite an easy-to-grow plant as it does not need watering every day.
Ficus Tineke needs a lot of sunlight to grow and maintain its shiny look, especially the variegation. Unlike many other garden plants, it prefers indirect instead of direct and strong sunlight.
This houseplant can tolerate in a low-light condition, but it might gradually lose the elegant look with time if there is not enough sunlight.
As mentioned above, Ficus Tineke is the white and pink variegation that makes it stand out from others. When placed under low light conditions, its new leaves will lack that creamy-colored variegation. If the situation lasts too long, the growing process and photo synthesizability will also be affected negatively.
Ficus Tineke does not prefer wet soil, but it does need enough water to grow and live well.
Instead of watering the plant every day, you should always pay attention to the humidity of the soil. When half or three-quarters of the topsoil is dry, it’s time for you to water the plant. While watering, ensure the water goes all the way down the pot and starts to excess from the drainage hole.
Because the soil will dry faster in summers, you should check it regularly and water it if necessary. When winter comes, you can deduce watering times since the drying process of soil slows down.
Thanks to the thickness of the leaves, this houseplant can hold more water inside its body than many plants and does not need too much humidity. However, this does not mean you can ignore giving the plant enough humidity completely.
If you see the leaves are dry and some parts of the plant are browning, it’s time to mist the plant with a spray bottle. You can spray on its leaves, body, and soil.
In summer or drying days, you can also group it with other plants in your house so that all of them will maintain the humidity easier. If you have a humidifier, it is a good idea to put it near your Ficus Tineke.
Ficus Tineke can live and grow well at average room temperature, so you will not need to do much to keep it healthy. The ideal temperature for this plant is around 60 to 80 F degrees. If the temperature drops below 55 degrees, you had better move your plant to a new space!
Fertilizer is needed for Ficus Tineke’s going process, especially in warmer seasons like spring and summer. At this time, it is advisable to fertilize your plant once a month.
To ensure the amount of fertilizer given to the plant is reasonable, you should check the level of the product and follow the instructions. Too little fertilizer might not help with the growing process, but too much of it is even more dangerous as it can burn the plant’s leaves and cause unfixable damages.
A houseplant like Ficus Tineke does not need grooming or pruning to grow well. However, you can do so when you want to shape the plant in certain ways or simply do not like too many branches or leaves on it. When the leaves are dusty, you can clean them with a wet cloth.
If you want your Ficus Tineke to become slender, do not groom or prune it. On the contrary, you can consider chopping down the primary branches to make the plant bushy.
In general, propagating Ficus Tineke is not complicated at all, with a clean and sharp blade. You can choose to grow the root in water first or directly plant it on the soil.
If you choose the water method, you need to cut a section of around three or four leaves. After that, put the stem in water and wait for the roots to reach the length of three inches before planting it in the soil.
In case you prefer planning it on soil, you can insert the stem in the wet soil and always ensure there is enough humidity in the atmosphere and enough water in the soil.
Normally, you can repot Ficus Tineke after two years, especially when the water does not flow out from the drainage hole easily anymore. The size of the pot is also important as the new pot should only be around two inches bigger than the old one.
As a variegated plant, Ficus Tineke can easily attract pests like:
- Plant scale
- Leaf and root mealybugs
- Spider mites
When it comes to diseases, the wrong caring process might lead to:
- Burning leaves from too much fertilizer
- Browning leaves due to strong and direct sunlight
- Drying plants caused by the lack of humidity
By the time you reach the ending of this blog, we know you already have an idea of how to take care of a Ficus Tineke properly and maintain its best look.
If you have a Ficus Tineke in your workplace and see some problems with it, like burning leaves or drying plants, following our above caring methods will help you nurture it back to health. By focusing on the main factors we mentioned, your Ficus Tineke will continue to thrive and have beautiful variegation on its leaves.