I had rooted a cutting in mid-December and it had reasonable roots and good shoots (5 leaves) and were in pot with good drainage. Recently the leaves have lost erection and do not look happy and the soil mix (Schulz potting soil/Perlite 50/50) seems a bit more than moist. Is there any practical way someone might have practiced to reduce moisture contents of the soil in the pot short of re-potting in dry soil, such as:

- Poking holes in the soil with a pencil,

- Poking holes and placing towel paper plugs in it as an upward wick, or

- Placing it on a heat mate etc etc ??

If re-potting is the only solution then why not (though I lost one plant after re-potting; re-potted because it was not showing any growth since August… and now it will never show any progress).

Hi Ottawan,
 
I have a newly potted plant that I thought I had over watered also!
 
I made a wick out of a piece of 1/4" Dia. rope (about 12"long), then I took a screwdriver and pushed it up into the pot through one of the drain holes and left what was left dangling over the side of the table it sits on, it has done the trick for me!
My plant hadn't lost any leafs though!
 
I can tell it is working because the rope was real wet at first, now it is just damp!
It will be interesting to see what others say on this subject!
 
Good Luck :)

Ottawan,
what Cecil said is excellent advice short of repotting the plant . Another thought and just a thought here is cover plant with misted plastic bag and suspend plant over floor heater , they can take heat and it just might help dry the soil not sure.

Ottawan,

I had some similar cases of just rooted happy figs.
One day they are happy (without a dome), and the next day the leaves just go limp.
A very bad sign - doing nothing is a one sure death sentence (for the twig)!
On close examination, the twig (wood) between the bottom roots and the
 top leaves had rotted, breaking the 'plumbing' mechanism between the two, ( hence the wilting part).

I managed to salvage a few by:
(a)  Very gently, taking off the plant from the potting medium, cutting off
the bottom rotted part, and repotting the top healthy part under a (vented) dome.
(b) Topping-up the potting medium around the top healthy part.
Using some structure, e.g., and inverted foam cup with the bottom-half-cut-off may help...
Again, provide a (vented) dome for added moisture.

The advantage of (a) is that the rotted part is removed, and it may stop any further rotting.
The down side is that the twig is disturbed.

The advantage of (b) is that the twig is NOT disturbed (some small root initials
may be just developing further up the twig).
If the original twig happenned to be a tip-cutting and new green
growth came from the very top - I have nothing to add.
However, if not, and the new  growth is 'lateral'; try to 'up'
the potting medium to 'just-to-cover' that particular node.
I think that particular spot just happens to be where the most
veggie-activity is.

Either way, it is almost like starting over, with a limited chance for success.
I seem to prefer method (b). Good luck....

In an ongoing discussion with a little banana of mine, I've been making the argument that a plant really can't have too much water.  It's the absence of oxygen which it can cause which is usually a problem.  In a university hydroponics course I took about 30-31 years ago I did a nutrient deficiency trial on tomatoes grown in buckets of water with aquarium airstones.

With this in mind, I made a little set-up a few days ago to help out an unusually small (and high value) banana plant of mine without re-potting it.  I spent about $11 on an air pump, tubing, etc, and you can see it posted at http://www.bananas.org/f2/my-baby-variegated-asian-wild-banana-7021.html#post63501.  Some folks weren't supportive of my idea and I did consider treating it with a fungicide, etc. today and potting it into a mixture with even more perlite, but after seen the good root growth (see http://www.bananas.org/f2/my-baby-variegated-asian-wild-banana-7021-2.html#post63633), I decided to re-pot it in the same soil with the same exact set-up.

You could do the same with your fig, most likely.

Good luck!

Harvey