Ficus Benjamin: transplant, care, watering, photo

Ficus Benjamin - one of the most common and popular houseplants, which has high decorative qualities and is capable of year round to please their owners with green foliage.

However, its cultivation is a rather laborious process, especially in the first months after planting, but if you know all the nuances and subtleties of caring for the plant, this process will become simple and easy.

A little bit about the ficus

Ficus Benjamin (his photo is in the review) is an evergreen plant of the Tutov family. In natural conditions, it can be found in the tropics and subtropics of China, India, Australia, Asia, the Philippines.

In nature it is a large shrub or tree with a height of up to 10-20 m, in the room conditions it can grow to 1.5-3 m. The crown of the Benjamin ficus is broad and very beautiful. The trunk of the plant is gray with small strokes. The branches are inclined downwards. The leaves of the ficus of Benjamin are dense, glossy, oval with an elongated tip. Color from light green to very dark. The central vein is not expressed explicitly.

Indoor varieties

Ficus of Benjamin has a huge variety of varieties, differing in size, shape and color of the leaves, the shape of the stem. Let's consider some of them.

• Exotics. The leaves are flat and soft, the color is saturated green, the length is up to 8 cm, the width is up to 3.5 cm. The internodes are up to 4 cm. The bush grows rapidly.
• Daniel. The leaves are dark green, monophonic, glossy, dense and flat, the edges are straight. It grows very fast - it grows almost 30 cm in a season.
• Monique. It is more delicate, thin, hanging branches and light, elongated, slightly wavy on the edge of the leaves.
• Nicole. Leaves more elongated, with a light edge.
• Safari. The grade differs tricolor coloration and an obvious spotting.
• Baroque. It is considered to be the most unusual, original and difficult to cultivate variety. Each leaf of this very miniature plant is twisted in the form of a spiral.

Location in the house

Before you bring this plant into the house, you need to determine its location - the ficus of Benjamin, the photo of which is provided in the article, very hard for changing places, and after moving, most often discards the foliage. If this trouble occurs soon after the purchase, then you should not be frightened and upset, because it's normal. Providing a full-fledged care to the plant will help him to adapt. Place in the room should be chosen well-lit, but without getting direct sun rays. The plant does not like drafts and cold. The air temperature should be not lower than 15 ° С, relative humidity - 50-70%.

Features of care

To Ficus Benjamin was able to constantly rejoice with his green chic crown and rivet to himself all the views of guests, he needs to ensure timely and proper care. It is not super complicated, but it is still necessary to provide certain conditions for the plant.

Lighting and temperature

Depending on the coloring of the foliage, the optimum zone of the plant's location is chosen with regard to illumination. For dark-green ficots, light semi-shade and diffused light are suitable, and bushes with mottled light leaves, on the contrary, are very demanding for the intensity of illumination, but areas with direct sunlight should be avoided.

Ficus Benjamin - a plant thermophilic, in summer the optimum temperature should be 25-30 ° C, in winter not lower than 18 ° C. At insufficient temperature, leaves are discarded.

Watering

In summer, the watering of the Benjamin ficus should be moderate, as the surface of the upper layer of the earth dries up. It is recommended abundant spraying in the morning and evening, washing the leaves.

Water the plant for uniform moisturizing in several ways, draining from the pallet of excess water passing through the drainage.

In winter, watering is reduced. The water is used stuck or filtered, the soil before irrigation is loosened.

Sprinkle the ficus carefully, because with an excess of soil moisture, its root system is prone to decay. Between watering the soil must be in time to dry out.

Top dressing of plants

For normal growth of the plant, the formation of a lush and dense crown of saturated color, it is important to take care of full-fledged fertilizing. For this, universal flower fertilizers are used. They are introduced from spring until late autumn. In this case, the mineral and organic varieties alternate.

The introduction of concentrated fertilizing is carried out when watering the plant. Dosage is calculated depending on the growth rate: the faster the ficus grows, the more often it needs to be fed.

Crown formation

With the help of pinching, pruning, weaving branches and trunks, the plant can easily be given a diverse appearance.

There are several most common ways of forming crowns of ficus, among which:

• One- and multi-tiered bar;
• Bonsai;
• Dome-shaped and spherical crown;
• Various sculptures.

The formation of a tree is best done in the spring. The youngest plant is the easiest to form, because it is actively and rapidly growing. Pruning promotes the awakening of sleeping buds, from which then new shoots grow and the plant becomes lush. In addition, with the help of pruning, it is possible to refine a greatly expanded and unattractive ficus. The pruner before this procedure must be decontaminated with alcohol or a weak solution.

In the crop you need to determine the main bush, you can not cut it by more than 20 cm, but lateral branches are cut off according to creative necessity and desire. Slices after trimming need to be treated with pounded coal.

From the ficus, it is possible to form a stamping plant, removing the lower branches and forming a dense crown by trimming.

Very interesting and effective you can look interlacing trunks of several plants. To obtain such a decorative effect, several young ficuses are planted in one pot and as they grow their trunks are twisted, braiding into a braid or other shape.

Ficus Benjamin: transplant

Looking at how the plant grows and beautifies, do not forget that it adds not only the number of branches and leaves. Month after month, the ficus increases the volume of the root system, and the soil, even with constant top dressing, begins to gradually decline.

To correct this situation will help to transplant the ficus of Benjamin.

It is usually produced when the roots of the plant are densely covered with an earth lump, and they will appear from the drainage hole. But it is better not to allow and carry out a planned transplant.

Before the Benjamin Ficus is transplanted into another pot, you need to select a suitable container. The younger the plant, the more active it increases the root mass, so it is annually transplanted into pots, 2-3 cm larger in diameter than before. Adult ficuses transplanted 2-3 times less often. At home, this is done in the spring or autumn.

The best primer for ficus is a ready-made universal, bought in a specialized store. But you can make a mixture at home, consisting of equal parts of leaf and sod land, sand and peat. At the bottom of the tank must necessarily lay the drainage.

Transplanting the ficus of Benjamin is carried out as follows: after watering the plant is extracted from an old pot, the old earth is removed, the flower is carefully transferred to a new container and sprinkled with fresh soil.

After the transplant, the plant adapts and it can start to discard the leaves. It is not necessary to worry about this, the ficus will soon again develop rapidly.

Reproduction of Benjamin Ficus in the home

The most favorable time for the reproduction of the fig tree is spring and early summer. This is due to the fact that it is during this period that there is an active growth of foliage and roots.

Reproduction of the Benjamin ficus at home is best done with the help of cuttings, as the cuttings give good roots both in the soil and in the water. The second method is seed, but it is used extremely rarely.

How to root the ficus of Benjamin?

The upper cuttings, on which there are leaves, are cut and put in a container of water. The leaves should not get wet, otherwise rotting may occur. As the water evaporates, it should be periodically topped up. On the stems, in 2-3 weeks, a callus tissue appears in the form of growths. At this point, after a while, roots are formed, after which the stalk is planted in the soil substrate.

If the stalk is planted in the ground, to create the effect of greenhouse conditions, it can be covered with a jar. Before you root the ficus of Benjamin, you need to prepare the soil. It is desirable to disinfect it by warming up on a steam bath for 30 minutes.

Problems in growing ficus

Ficus Benjamin has some difficulties of cultivation, on which it is necessary to pay attention:

• Dry leaf tips in winter indicate a lack of humidity in the room. Most often this is due to the shutdown of heating. In this case, it is necessary to increase the frequency of spraying and to organize artificial lighting. This will help the flower to wait for spring.
• If the plant suddenly starts to discard the leaves, this should alert its owner. So the flower can react to abrupt changes in conditions of the maintenance, for example, on decrease in temperature, occurrence of a draft, change of a place, plentiful watering in the winter when it was necessary, on the contrary, to reduce quantity of a moisture.
• Changing the time of year for any plant causes yellowing and dropping of leaves. Ficus is also no exception. But if at another time the ficus of Benjamin turns yellow - what should I do? There are two main reasons for this: the first is an overabundance of water, capable of destroying the plant, the second - too low a temperature. It is necessary to eliminate these causes.
• If the flower does not grow for a long time and does not develop, you need to evaluate whether the pot size is chosen correctly. If the pot is too large relative to the size of the plant, the roots will begin to stagnate, cease to develop and die. On the contrary, tight capacity prevents the formation and development of the crown.

If after correction of mistakes in care and flower maintenance there is no improvement, it is necessary to pay attention to the presence of diseases and pests.

Diseases and pests of ficus

Among the most common diseases affecting the ficus of Benjamin, we can note the following:

• Anthracnose . Appear dark brown spots, growing into ulcers. In the absence of treatment, the ficus will die. Methods of struggle: removal of diseased leaves, treatment with fungicide, reduction of spraying and watering, frequent airing.
• Tserskoporoz . Black small dots appear behind the sheet. Treatment - as in anthracnose.
• The water drop . With this disease, corky growths are formed on the back of the leaf. Treatment: removal of diseased leaves and ensuring proper care.

The main pests of the Benjamin ficus are spider mites, thrips and aphids.

The most dangerous among them is a spider mite. The pest damages the flower very quickly and adapts to many chemicals. That is why the fight with it is worth starting when the first signs of the disease appear. To destroy this pest, you can use folk methods, for example, garlic tincture, processing foliage with laundry soap or applying an insecticide.