If you own a Fiddle Leaf Fig (Ficus lyrata), you’ve probably heard of, and are perhaps a bit stressed out by, their reputation for being hard to take care of. One of the biggest factors that can affect a Fiddle Leaf’s wellness is light levels. Providing enough sun exposure to your plant can make a huge difference in keeping your plant happy and healthy in the long run.
Fiddle Leaf Figs prefer lots of bright indirect sunlight, or a few hours of direct sunlight each day. If it’s not getting enough light, your Fig may have slow, or leggy growth, start leaning towards windows, or drop its leaves. Grow lights are an easy solution when your plant isn’t getting enough light indoors.
Fiddle Leaf Figs respond very strongly and quickly to changing light levels, so it is important to understand their preferred light levels and recognize when they have been under-or over-exposed. By fine-tuning their light exposure and placement in your home, you’ll find that Fiddle Leaf Figs are actually quite hardy, vibrant houseplants.
How Much Light Do Fiddle Leaf Figs Need?
Fiddle Leaf Figs are native to the West African lowland tropical rainforests, where they grow amongst crowds of other shrubs beneath larger canopies of trees. This means that they are used to competing for lots of indirect ambient light, with the occasional burst of direct sunlight here and there.
It’s a similar situation in our homes. These houseplants can actually tolerate a wider range of light conditions but tend to fair better (both in health and growth rate) when they have access to an abundance of light, both direct and indirect.
Let me attach some numbers to this topic. Because indirect (or ambient) light will be the most abundant source of lights indoors (assuming you don’t live in an atrium or greenhouse), just know that Fiddle Leaf Figs will take as much of it as you can give them. Six hours each day is a good starting point, but they’ll always appreciate more.
If available, they will also willingly take a few hours of direct sunlight each day. If you’ve got your Fig placed next to or near a window, they will easily handle an hour or two of direct morning or afternoon sunlight and will actually tolerate much more if properly acclimated.
That means you can train your plant to handle longer periods in the direct sun by gradually increasing its exposure time over several days or weeks. This allows the plant to be placed in a high exposure area (like a south-facing window) without fear of sunburn.
Like I said, your Fiddle Leaf Fig will do its very best to tolerate the light levels it is given, but if the light is too low or too high, you will quickly find out that your plant isn’t reacting well and action needs to be taken to correct the issue. To read more about the ideal lighting for your Fiddle Leaf Fig, read this article.
Signs Your Fig Is Getting Too Little Light
Since most of us aren’t lucky enough to live in homes with an endless expanse of south-facing windows, we often have to make compromises when placing houseplants indoors. We try to give them the best spot based on their needs, but at a certain point, you have to just stick them where they fit and hope for the best.
If that sounds like something you’ve done with your Fiddle Leaf, it is important to monitor your plant for indicators that it might be suffering from low light exposure. Since Figs can be highly influenced by environmental factors like light, it’s important to quickly identify and correct these issues to keep your plant healthy.
SLOW GROWTH: One sign your Fig needs more sunlight is growth that has slowed down significantly or completely stopped. The plant needs sunlight to carry out important processes like photosynthesis to create and utilize nutrients, so when light is limited, growth also becomes limited by those processes and begins to slow or stop.
SPINDLY OR LEGGY GROWTH: Alternatively, you may find that your Fiddle Leaf seems to be producing new growth, but it looks spindly or bare. This is another telltale sign that your plant is actually seeking out new sources of light and producing leggy, weak growth to reach out in different directions. This isn’t a sustainable process for your plant, as it takes a lot of energy to produce this type of growth.
LEANING TOWARDS THE SUN: Similar to your Fig producing leggy growth, another tactic your plant may use to get more light exposure is to actually grow or lean towards a light source, such as a window or grow light.
LEAF DROP: In the most severe cases of low light conditions, typically over longer periods of time, your Fiddle Leaf may begin to drop its leaves, usually starting from the bottom and working up the plant. This is your plant reacting to insufficient environmental inputs and sacrificing parts of itself to stay alive.
If you notice any of these things happening with your Fig, you should immediately work to supply more light, either by moving the plant to a brighter spot in your home or through the addition of a grow light (more on that below).
Signs Your Fig Is Getting Too Much Light
It is possible for Fiddle Leaf Figs to get too much light, as well. That may sound strange since they can actually take several hours of direct sun exposure in a day when properly acclimated. However, it’s often a case of too much, too soon, and the results of such high sun exposure can have consequences, such as sunburn.
SCALEY BROWN SPOTS: When your Fig gets sunburned, the direct sunlight (and associated heat) is actually destroying the top layers of leaf tissue. This usually presents as several or all of a plant’s leaves covered in scaley, brown spots. The leaves can look desiccated and can often be leathery in appearance.
HOLES IN LEAVES: In severe cases of sunburn, the leaf tissue will be damaged beyond repair and will actually dry up and crumble away, leaving the remaining leaf with missing sections or holes throughout.
As you can imagine, sunburned leaves can be very detrimental to the plant’s overall health and reduce its ability to photosynthesize. The damage caused by sunburn usually doesn’t recover, and the amount of energy it takes the plant to attempt to repair the damaged leaves can be substantial. It is usually best to just prune out sunburned leaves for the long-term health of your Fig. For more info on sunburn and Fiddle Leaf Figs, read this article.
SOIL DRIES QUICKLY: Another less severe sign your Fig may be getting too much light is if your plant is drying out a lot faster than you anticipate. Because direct sunlight often carries a lot of heat, your Fiddle Leaf can actually lose quite a bit of moisture either through respiration in its leaves or because the soil is actually drying out quickly.
Because the amount of water available to the plant is much lower than usual, you may see your Fig wilting or showing other signs of underwatering. This also sets your plant up for more serious issues like sunburn or the leaf tips drying out, burning, and curling up.
The Best Location for Your Fiddle Leaf Fig
Because you are now equipped with knowledge of how much light your Fiddle Leaf needs, as well as the dangers of too little or too much light exposure, you are ready to pick the best spot in your home to place your Fig.
When considering your house, look for a spot with lots of bright, indirect light all day long. Usually, the rooms with south- or east-facing windows will be the brightest. Bonus points if you can find a spot where some morning or evening sun can shine into the room, as well.
Remember that you want to start with at least six hours of light a day, minimum. More is generally better when it comes to indirect light. When I bring new figs (or other Ficus varieties) into my home, I get the best results when I place them in the middle of my living room, about six feet away from a south-facing window. This gives them lots of ambient light all day long without the risk of overexposure to direct sunlight.
Over the course of a week, I push the plant about a foot closer to the window each day to gradually acclimate it to ever-increasing levels of sunlight. My new Fig is in the ideal spot near the window by the end of the week, and I don’t have to worry about it on a particularly sunny day.
If you tend to have a lot of direct sunlight in your home (lucky!), you may find that you need to protect your Fig a bit, at least initially, after you bring it home. If so, just pull your Fig a few feet back from the window or draw a sheer curtain for added protection.
You can move your plant from place to place as you figure out where it works best, but just be mindful that you aren’t changing the plant’s light exposure too much. Drastic changes in light levels can put stress on your plant, and it may react quite dramatically, like dropping its leaves.
Supplementing Your Fig with Grow Lights
I would be remiss if, in an article about Fiddle Leaf Figs and light levels, I didn’t mention the amazing inventions of grow lights.
Grow lights are exactly what they sound like. They are fixtures or bulbs that emit light that mimics the natural sunlight, causing plants to grow indoors more like they would in the sun. When dealing with any houseplant that is super susceptible to light level changes, like a Fiddle Leaf, grow lights are an affordable and easy way to ensure your plant is getting adequate light exposure without the concern of issues caused by too much direct sunlight.
Whether you suspect your Fig isn’t getting enough light, your home doesn’t have great light exposure in general, or you live in an area where winter days are short and dark, you can still keep your plant happy by shining a grow light on it for a few to several hours a day. Again, you can aim for six hours a day, but your Fig will take more if you let it.
Grow lights a pretty versatile and come in lots of different forms, ranging from bulbs that fit into most lamp sockets to free-standing lighting rigs or large arrays that can be installed overhead.
Our favorite grow bulb here at The Healthy Houseplant is by far the Sansi 15 Watt LED bulb. This LED bulb doesn’t get hot like other available options and fits into a standard lamp E26 base so you can use it in almost any light figure you already have in your house. I love this bulb for all types of houseplants as it can easily be placed in a small desk lamp on a table or in a bigger floor lamp for large plants.
Want to read more about grow bulbs? We really nerd out about them here.
Final Thoughts
Fiddle Leaf Figs are beautiful houseplants that add a lot of structure and greenery to your home. With several hours of bright, indirect light (and even a few hours of direct sunlight) each day, your Fig will thrive.
Watch for signs that your plant is being underexposed (slowed or leggy growth, dropping leaves) or overexposed (wilting or sunburn) and correct these issues quickly to maintain your plant’s wellbeing. If you have trouble maintaining adequate light levels, consider supplementing with a grow light.
Want to learn more? Check out these three articles to add to your knowledge of Fiddle Leaf Figs and light exposure.
- Everything You Need to Know About Light and Your Fiddle Leaf Fig
- Do Fiddle Leaf Figs Get Sunburned? Can They Recover from the Damage?
- Why is My Fiddle Leaf Fig Leggy? What Can I Do to Help?
- The Best Grow Lights For Your Houseplants
With the right light exposure, your Fiddle Leaf Fig will reward you with lots of healthy growth. Good luck!