A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 Rubber Plant

I have a rubber plant that I have had for about a year now. It is losing leaves and I am not sure why. The leaves are dropping but they are still green when they drop. I lost about 5 leaves over the weekend. Can you somebody help me out? What am I doing wrong?

Are you over watering it? Also rubber plants dont do well in low light. They need indirect bright light. Hope that helps

They can be VERY tempermental....any change can cause them to lose leaves.....In the summer I always put mine out on the back porch in a shaded spot and it really takes off....but if you over or under water it, it will get stressed and drop leaves.

Or even moving it from one spot to another....luckily when I moved mine outside it didn't drop one leaf. But they are very testy plants.

I have not moved it a lot but it doesn't get bright light either. I water it about once a week. Is that okay? I live in Minnesota. Can I put it outside or will it get too cold at night? If I can put it outside, can it take morning sun or no sun at all?

What do your temps get down to at night?

Here is mine........I move it out on the porch where it gets morning sun, total afternoon shade(in the heat of the day).........



In the summer with it being outside I water it every 2-3 days because it dries out fast.

Bright light is always best, just not direct full sun for hours at a time.

Right now it gets down to about 60 at night. Sometimes even in the 50s. Will that be okay?

Your tree looks wonderful by the way! Mine doesn't look bad but it keeps losing leaves. It is not quite that big either. I will have to post a pic of it if I can figure out how to do that.

Thank you! Check out these links...I'm not so sure about the temps...I don't want to say go ahead and then have it do even worse. Around here it is mostly in the 60's and ocassionally 50's right now too and mine has done well.

rubber tree


more rubber tree

Thanks for you help! I think I might try and put it outside for a while. If I think it is going to get too cool at night, I will just bring it in for the night. Or is that not a good idea to be bringing it in and out?

I have been having this same problem with my rubber tree, and I pulled it out of the planter and the roots are totally growing out of the bottom and winding around the pot! Should I trim the roots, or repot it into a bigger pot. I showed this plant and Will said that it looked fine in the pot that it was in. Maybe I over watered it a little, but I will let it dry out a little. What should I do with the roots???