Watching for new growth on a rubber tree

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As of today, February 29th, 2020, I'm hoping to rescue some ailing rubber tree plants, which were languishing at the office of the Woman in my Life, and she brought them over here.

I'm in the Phoenix, Arizona area, and while the weather is still mild, the outdoor sun can be very harsh, so I put them in the garage. They'll be fine there for another month, until even the garage will be too hot for them. If I left them in the garage all summer, they'd cook!

I'm looking for new growth and I think that I see it, although it might be my imagination at this point. You need to look at the top of the plant. That red spear will become a leaf if the plant is alive and growing, and it will get dark and hard if the plant is dead, or if that particular branch is dead.



I have two plants in the garage, and one of them showed definitely signs of a dead branch, which I cut off a few days ago. If you look closely at the leaves on the plant on the right you can see some leaf curl, which isn't encouraging, whereas the one of the left still has healthy-looking leaves, flat and wide.

They're under a fluorescent light, which tropical plants like, and is similar to the lights that they've been living under at the office. I spray the leaves every time I go look at them, and am now gonna go check the soil with a moisture meter.

I'll let you know how it goes!

 Update March 10th. Life finds a way!

New leaf emerging on a rubber tree plant

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