Matt's Plants & Co – Australia

The Rubber Fig works well as an indoor plant, with its year-round greenery bringing life into dark corners – similar to a Monstera.

Known botanically as Ficus elastica, it is native to tropical Asia where it can grow up to 30m in the wild.

But keep it in a pot inside and it won’t grow more than a few metres – if you let it. If it’s too tall for your liking, you can prune it back and use the offcuts to propagate more plants.

Its shiny green leaves will grow up to 30cm long.

I’ve read online of some people killing their figs by watering them too much, so I potted mine into a self-watering pot and it’s loving life in a semi-shaded corner in my home which receives some afternoon sunshine.

Given its name, I did some digging. The Rubber Fig was used to create rubber from its milky sap – which contains latex – but it was “inferior” and eventually replaced by the Rubber Tree.

There’s been lots written about propagating this fig by a method known as air layering, but I will leave this for a separate blog post.