Cordyline - Enrooting

Posted under Non-blooming plants by ruola

 

 

 

Cordyline gives good opportunities to make a nice composition and decoration of your house. When the plant is big enough (about 30 cm) you can notice outgrowths appearing on its scrape. That can happen without your help or you can cut the top of the plant and soon have the outgrowths here and there. Think of the future composition in advance and remove the outgrowths you don’t need. Usually gardners leave two outgrowths on opposite sides of the plant and at the same level. By the way the cut top of the plant you can put into the water and as soon as it gives roots you can plant it and have another Cordyline in your house.

Give your imagination freedom: together with the cut Cordyline you can seed some low growing plants — thus you’ll have an immitation of the tree and the grass under it.

For now i didn’t cut my Cordyline because i like it as it is — it has luxurious foliage. Though it is normal if the scrape gets bold and the plant is covered with foliage only by half. In this case you can easily cut the plant trying to make it more interesting.

 

 When you enroot the cut top of Cordyline make sure you don’t put it too deep into the pot. In future you might have problems with it as the outgrowths will grow directly from the soil and it will be too late to remove without hurting the plant.

 

Unfortunately i’ve made this mistake and on the picture you can see it. What i’ve done is first of all removed the layer of the soil to find the place where the outgrowth comes from. Then i cut the outgrowth. I put it into the water and later i’m going to write later about the results.

 

Ficus Benjamina

Posted under Non-blooming plants by ruola

 

Water: moderate

Light: diffused light

Temperature: 15-18

Blooming: no

 

This plant comes from Asia mostly, countries like India and China.

Ficus can grow high enough up to 20 meters height.

At the same time when planted in a pot this kind of Ficus won’t grow too high and can be a nice house plant. The remarkable thing about Ficus is that it’s perfect for Bonsai art. In good conditions Ficus grows very fast and to restrain its growth use small containers and cut branches.

Water the plant moderately and spray with boiled water. The reason for using boiled water is that usual water from the tap contains a lot of soil. After boiling, water won’t leave salt spots on the leaves.

Ficus benjamina multiplies with grafts which give roots quite soon. When replanting Ficus put a thick layer of drainage on the pot botton, then add universal soil or special soil for Ficus. Replanting should be done every 3 years and better in spring. Or you can renew the upper layer (ab. 3 cm) with fresh soil. In the period from spring to the middle of autumn Ficus need foliar application

Due to a specific coloring of its leaves it can decorate your appartment to advantage. You can put it eather by a large window on the floor and use to make a plant composition.

Ficus Benjamina doesn’t need as much light as other ficuses that’s why you can put it deep in the room. It doesn’t like dry air and drafts. Also avoid drops in temperature.

In winter Ficus benjamina has a rest period and loss of leaves is normal at that time till it doesn’t exceed 30% of the foliage.

On the whole Ficus won’t take much of your time, even with little of care it can grow better from year to year and be a good decroration of your place.