You Can Grow Two Fiddle Leaf Fig Trees In One Pot – Here’s What You Need to Know

I have a few articles on why it might not be the *best* idea to keep multiple Monstera in one pot BUT its pretty common to buy fiddle leaf figs with a couple of separate stems.

The advice for separating fiddle leaf figs is actually the opposite to what it is for Monstera.

Fiddle leaf figs can actually do better if you plant them in pots together, and it’s often a bad idea to separate individual trees when they’re established together.

Should Fiddle leaf figs in the same pot be separated?

Unless you’re a fiddle leaf fig aficionado I wouldn’t recommend it because fiddle leaf figs don’t like change.

They don’t like to be repotted at the best of times, so repotting them after you’ve damaged their root system is a definite no no. No plant can do shock like a fiddle leaf fig. Separating two into separate pots could put them into shock and stop them from producing new growth for six months to a year.

The pros of growing fiddle leaf figs together

They help each other grow

This is the opposite to what happens when you group Monstera together. Monstera release hormones that contain growth inhibitors, so two plants growing together in one pot actually hinder one another and you get less growth than if you’d grown them separately.

Most plants produce hormones that help out nearby genetically identical plants. It doesn’t happen in plants that are merely the same species – they have to be actually genetically related.

About 85% of fiddle leaf figs were produced from one mother plant (the wonders of tissue culture guys) so they’re genetically similar. Chances are, if you have two in a pot together, they’ll be related and will release hormones that benefit one another.

They look bushier

From an aesthetic point of view, plants tend to look better when they’re fuller.

Alos, fiddle leaf figs have a well-deserved reputation for dropping their leaves if you so much as look at them funny, so having a few in a pot together just provides a bit of insurance and will stop you from *hopefully* ending up with three sticks in a pot.

They can increase the ambient humidity

This claim gets bandied about a lot, and it is technically true so it would be remiss of me not to mention it BUT the amount of ambient humidity provided by plants themselves isn’t enough to significantly shift the level of humidity in a room.

Basically, if your humidity is low, plants alone are unlikely to be able to raise it on their own. A humidifier is your best bet.

Potential issues with growing fiddle leaf figs in the same pot

They can spread issues between each other

There’s always an inherent risk when growing plants together, because if you, for want of a better phrase, fuck up, then you’re risking multiple plants.

There are a myriad of things that could go wrong – root rot, pests, improper care etc etc BUT if you’re new to plant care, then having fiddle leaf figs in one pot that are going to send out hormones to help each other might be helpful. I can’t actually find any information on how strong these hormones are.

They can physically hinder each other’s growth

To be totally honest my plants hinder each other’s growth anyway – I have a spider plant that attempts to plant babies in another plant’s pot like some kind of botanical cuckoo, a Philodendron gloriosum which waits until my back is turned and then tries to crawl into the neighbouring pot, and a begonia in the terrarium with a distinct lack of both manners and awareness of personal space.

That being said, having multiple plants in one pots can end up with branches rubbing on other branches and causing damage etc. The canopy effect (where the trees in the canopy don’t touch each other’s leaves) doesn’t seem to work inside the home.

How to separate your fiddle leaf figs

Fiddle leaf figs have pretty fine, delicate roots, so weirdly enough, the best way to separate them is to get a clean, sharp knife and slice through the root ball.

IF you try to manually separate the roots then you’re more likely to accidentally pull of big clumps, so a decisive slice is generally the least destructive way to split them up.

Put each plant into a pot that’s the same size or slightly bigger than the root ball. The last thing we want to do is give it root rot.

Then it’s just a case of giving it exemplary care until each separate plant gets established.

Don’t be surprised if you see a decline and decent amount of leaf drop. Chopping roots should stimulate root growth though, so whilst the bit above the soil is recovering from the shock, the bit below the soil is hard at work.

It’s likely that you won’t get new growth for several months BUT the root growth that was stimulated by the chop can often cause new growth to come in thick and fast.

Should you pot fiddle leaf figs together?

My fiddle leaf fig is by itself and seems happy enough. I don’t think there’s enough actual real-life evidence to claim that several fiddle leaf figs grow better in one pot than in individual ones. They’re not like rabbits – they don’t need to be kept in pairs for the sake of their well-being.

Also, a lot of the purported benefits of keeping them in one pot (such as the rise in humidity) would work just as well if you had two plants in two pots next to each other.

I think it comes down to aesthetics. If you like the look of multiple plants in one pot, go for it. If you don’t, don’t.

By the way, if you have, say, three fiddle leaf fig trees in three pots and you want to pot them all up, that tends to be less disruptive and shocking than separating them.

Take them out of the old pot, and put them together in the new pot but don’t break up the roots.

Then just fill in the soil around the gaps. Try to be as gentle and quiet as possible so none of them suspect anything’s going on. If you don’t disturb them too much, they *shouldn’t* go into shock.