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Ficus maclellandii
“Indoor” and “tree” aren’t two phrases that all the time go properly collectively, however I’d say that the banana leaf fig makes it work.
A tall, woody plant that stands aside out of your typical small and herbaceous houseplants, Ficus maclellandii could make a powerfully fairly assertion in your house.
Add banana-shaped leaves and the fig moniker to the combo, and it could even have your abdomen rumbling just a little.
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Whether or not it’s a visible accent in your indoor jungle or the star of the present, the banana leaf fig is solely radiant.
However regardless of the way you make the most of this plant, you’ll must know tips on how to domesticate it correctly. We wouldn’t need such a reasonably plant to go on with out reaching its aesthetic potential, now would we?
Our information will stroll you thru the fundamentals of banana leaf figs: their propagation, cultivation, upkeep, and extra. Hopefully, you’ll discover it a-peel-ing, cringey banana puns apart.
Listed here are the specifics:
What Are Banana Leaf Figs?
The banana leaf fig – aka F. maclellandii – is a member of the Ficus genus, which accommodates over 900 species of shrubs, bushes, and vines.
Hardy in USDA Zones 9 to 11, banana leaf figs hail from east India, Bangladesh, south China, and far of southeast Asia.
Within the wild, they’re discovered rising in moist, tropical to subtropical environments.
Banana leaf figs type trunks of clean, gentle brown bark with distinct lenticels. This species is a member of the “strangler figs,” a bunch of epiphytic Ficus vegetation that may kill their hosts.
They set up themselves across the trunk of a number tree, put down terrestrial roots whereas dispatching the host, then proceed to develop independently the place the host used to be as a self-supporting, tubular trunk. Discuss brutal!
However don’t suppose that it’s important to choke out one in all the one that you love bushes simply to develop a banana leaf fig, although. They’ll develop simply fantastic within the floor or a container and not using a host.
With a development behavior that turns into extra rounded and tree-like because it matures, F. maclellandii usually tops out at six to 10 toes tall and 4 to 6 toes vast when grown indoors in a container. However in its pure out of doors habitat, it might probably develop 40 toes tall and 30 toes vast!
Banana leaf figs flaunt easy, spirally-arranged, leathery, shiny, darkish inexperienced, and lance-shaped leaves that develop about eight inches lengthy and one and a half inches vast.
I’d say that F. maclellandii foliage appears to be like extra like banana fruits moderately than true banana leaves, though banana-ness is within the eye of the beholder, I suppose.
As a Ficus species, F. maclellandii bears pairs of small inexperienced figs from leaf axils in spring, which flip yellow to crimson as they mature.
Inside every fruit is a hole syconium: a sort of inflorescence with small flowers that face inwards in the direction of the empty area in every fruit. Kinda like a geode, however with flowers as a substitute of dazzling crystals.
In nature, specialised fig wasps lay their eggs throughout the syconiums, pollinating the flowers as they achieve this. Seed set won’t happen with out this partnership between fig and fig wasp, which is why banana leaf figs are successfully sterile in international environments with out their pollinators.
If pollination does happen and seeds type throughout the fruits, then the seeds can be unfold through animals resembling birds, bats, and terrestrial mammals as they eat the figs, transfer elsewhere, and excrete the undigested seeds.
A phrase of warning: dealing with the fruits, leaves, and sap barehanded can depart you with contact dermatitis, so all the time put on gloves and train warning!
Banana Leaf Fig Propagation
Except you possibly can telepathically management fig wasps that you just’re okay with having indoors, I wouldn’t attempt to develop these vegetation from seed.
Taking stem cuttings, air layering, or just transplanting a younger begin could be my go-to’s for propagation.
From Stem Cuttings
Use a sterilized blade or pair of hand pruners to take away six-inch cuttings from the terminal ends of healthy-looking shoots.
Don’t overlook to put on a pair of gardening gloves to guard your fingers from the sap!
After defoliating the underside third of every reducing, scrape off the bark from the underside inch of every reducing and dip it in a rooting hormone like Bonide’s IBA powder from Arbico Organics.
Stick your cuttings two inches deep into six-inch pots containing a 50:50 mixture of perlite and peat moss or coconut coir. Moisten the media, cowl the cuttings with clear plastic baggies, and set the pots in brilliant, oblique gentle indoors.
Nonetheless holding the media evenly moist, but not waterlogged, take away the humidity covers as soon as roots have shaped – which ought to take about 4 to 6 weeks.
Proceed along with your care, and as soon as the vegetation start to outgrow their containers, they’ll be prepared for transplanting into their new properties!
By way of Air Layering
Air layering is an easy propagation approach for houseplants, or any vegetation with shoots which are too powerful to bend and layer usually.
Fairly than bending branches all the way down to soil, air layering brings soil as much as the plant!
Choose a bit of stem 12 to 18 inches away from its tip. With a pointy knife, make two cuts across the stem spaced one inch aside, together with a vertical slit connecting the 2. Then, peel away a hoop of bark, leaving a one-inch part of barkless wooden.
Powder the wound with rooting hormone, clump a handful or two of moist sphagnum moss across the wound, then wrap all of it up in clear plastic or aluminum foil.
Safe the ends with electrical tape or twist ties – they’ll have to be simply un-secured for later watering.
Preserve the moss moist whereas roots type, which may take six to eight weeks or longer. As soon as the roots are a number of inches lengthy, separate the brand new plant from its mum or dad, slightly below the place the rooted wound ends. From right here, it’s transplanting time!
Transplanting
After getting your propagated plant or bought nursery begin, put together a sturdy container with drainage holes that’s an inch or two wider than the transplant’s root system.
Fill it with a moisture-retaining, but well-draining rising medium – one thing like Miracle-Gro’s indoor potting combine, which you’ll find through Amazon.
Miracle-Gro Indoor Potting Combine
Then, dig a gap deep sufficient to suit the transplant’s root system, and make it only a bit wider so that you’ve bought room to work.
Take away your transplant from its container, gently ease it into its new container, then backfill it with dug-out soil.
Water it in, set it close to a window to obtain brilliant, oblique gentle, and also you’re good to go!
Learn how to Develop Banana Leaf Figs
Now that your banana leaf fig is potted up, let’s focus on tips on how to hold it joyful in its new indoor digs.
Local weather and Publicity Wants
As a specimen hardy in USDA Zones 9 to 11, the banana leaf fig definitely prefers warmth over the chilly.
In order a houseplant, it’ll recognize a temperature vary of 60 to 70°F. For those who’re a utilities-conscious thermostat-tweaker, then a broader vary of fifty to 80°F is suitable.
The standard family humidity ought to suffice, as these vegetation aren’t too choosy.
However you could wish to hold your specimens away from AC items, heaters, drafty spots, or every other place the place temperatures can change on a dime.
For F. maclellandii, brilliant, oblique gentle from an east- or west-facing window is the identify of the lighting sport.
Soil Wants
A rising media that may retain moisture, but enable extra water to empty is good.
Make sure that the media’s pH is someplace within the 5.0 to 7.0 vary, and also you’re golden.
Water and Fertilizer Wants
Fixed, even moisture is perfect for banana leaf figs.
To offer this with out going overboard and making the potting soil soggy, enable the highest inch of media to dry out earlier than you water once more.
As soon as a month all through the spring and summer season, an utility of balanced fertilizer actually hits the spot.
You’ll wish to maintain off throughout the fall and winter months, when the plant is dormant although.
Bonide Liquid Plant Meals
Want fertilizer? Try Bonide’s 10-10-10 liquid plant meals, out there at Walmart.
Rising Suggestions
- Remember to present brilliant, oblique gentle.
- The rising media ought to retain moisture, but drain away the surplus.
- Deeply water at any time when the highest inch of soil dries out.
Pruning and Upkeep
As your banana leaf fig grows huge and robust, it’s going to change into rootbound… except you repot it.
As soon as your specimen loses that inch of area between its roots and the container, then it’s time to measurement up. Be sure you use contemporary potting soil and be sure that the brand new pot shouldn’t be excessively massive – one measurement up will do the trick.
For those who want to set your vegetation open air throughout the summer season months, they will go outdoors when temperatures persistently attain 50°F or greater.
Ensure to deliver them in when the temperatures threaten to drop beneath that. They’ll survive in decrease temperatures, however they received’t have as fairly as many lush leaves.
As an evergreen plant, your banana leaf ficus received’t drop its leaves in fall. However to maintain issues trying lush, you need to prune away any useless, diseased, broken, and in any other case unhealthy-looking leaves and branches as you discover them.
If any wholesome branches occur to throw off the aesthetic, then be at liberty to ax these as properly.
If fruits seem, take away them to maintain the plant trying sharp. These figs aren’t the awesomely edible variety, and so they’ll detract from the foliage and ultimately drop in the event that they’re left on the plant.
Don’t overlook your gloves when working with this plant!
When development slows throughout dormancy, your plant will naturally deplete much less water as its transpiration charges lower, so your watering frequency will go down, as properly.
At all times verify the highest inch of media for dryness earlier than irrigating.
Banana Leaf Fig Cultivars to Choose
Banana leaf figs aren’t in tremendous excessive demand for his or her fruits or landscaping functions, so there aren’t numerous cultivars out there. Nonetheless, there are a pair which are price noting.
Take ‘Alii,’ for example. First grown commercially in Hawaii – ‘Alii’ truly means “king” in Hawaiian – this cultivar has change into the specimen you’re most definitely to seek out out there for buy.
So when you have a banana leaf fig that you just’ve bought from a public vendor, likelihood is it’s an ‘Alii.’
‘Allii’
You will discover F. maclellandii ‘Alii’ with a braided trunk that’s three- to four-feet tall out there at FastGrowingTrees.com.
You’ll be able to select from a white or beige ornamental pot as properly.
Different cultivars embrace ‘Amstel-veen,’ ‘Amstel Queen,’ and ‘Amstel King,’ that are broader-leaved variations of the usual species.
With these bigger leaves come a higher floor space for conducting photosynthesis, which in flip comes with a tolerance for decrease gentle!
Managing Pests and Illness
Granted, the house is usually extra sanitary than the outside, however well being issues can nonetheless happen, particularly when you obtain specimens which are already infested or contaminated.
Right here’s tips on how to deal with some widespread points:
Bugs
As potential vectors of illness, bugs generally is a double whammy of terrible. However on the flip facet, managing them can resolve two plant issues for the worth of 1!
Mealybugs
Congregating in clumps on stems and leaf undersides, mealybugs have pink and segmented our bodies beneath their mealy white coatings.
Waxy deposits on the stems and foliage will usually change into obvious earlier than the precise pests do.
With their piercing-sucking mouthparts, they extract very important fluids from leaf tissues, which might depart infested vegetation with chlorosis, stunted development, dieback, and even plant demise.
Scale
Scale bugs are spherical, flattened, and are available in both delicate or armored varieties.
Amassing in teams and with no visible legs, they really do seem like lizards or fish scales, or maybe one thing you’d desire a dermatologist to freeze off with liquid nitrogen.
Scale use comparable mouthparts as mealybugs to feed from of vegetation, which might trigger leaf yellowing, drop, and lowered vigor. Additionally they excrete honeydew.
Spider Mites
Far tinier than mealybugs or scale, spider mites are barely seen – to the bare eye, they only seem like transferring crimson dots. However when you get away a hand lens, you’ll see itty-bitty crimson arachnids.
Usually accompanied by conspicuous webbing, spider mites depart tiny, stippled feeding marks on infested leaves. In time, the injury can progress to choloris, necrosis, and even leaf drop.
Robust sprays of water ought to bodily take away spider mites, whereas horticultural oils will truly put them down.
Spider mites nonetheless bought you down? Our information has much more ideas.
Illness
Utilizing sterile gardening instruments and deciding on disease-free vegetation from the get-go will go a good distance in the direction of stopping illness.
Botrytis Blight
Also called grey mould, botrytis blight is a situation attributable to a number of completely different species of Botrytis fungi.
You’ll acknowledge this illness by the softened brown spots that type on leaves and stems. Moreover, strands of fungal mycelium will transfer from contaminated to wholesome tissues, spreading the illness all through the plant.
It usually infects vegetation stored in overly damp circumstances, attributable to overwatering or poorly draining soil.
If this illness does strike, be sure to promptly quarantine your plant. Illness unfold may be halted with sprays of fungicides, whereas severely stricken vegetation ought to most likely be pitched.
Root Rot
Attributable to suffocated roots attributable to over-saturated soils, root rot is an abiotic situation that may ultimately kill the plant. Because of a root system that’s successfully drowning, the foliage and stems can flip chlorotic, necrotic, and ultimately perish.
Root rot may be prevented, halted, and probably reversed with correct watering practices. Bear in mind: let the highest inch of soil dry out between waterings.
For a plant with root rot, it may be useful to take away it from its container and trim away any fully rotted roots. If greater than half of the roots are rotted then the plant might be a goner.
Greatest Makes use of for Banana Leaf Figs
For those who’re in search of an indoor tree that thrives in brightly lit spots, then a banana leaf fig actually does the trick.
Bursting with skinny, lush leaves, this plant is concurrently dense but open, in a method that’s fairly aesthetic.
You’ll by no means miss out on viewing the leaves, both – they dangle downward, making it close to inconceivable to keep away from a look at their shiny inexperienced surfaces.
Fast Reference Rising Information
Plant Sort: | Broadleaf evergreen perennial | Foliage Colour: | Inexperienced |
Native to: | Bangladesh, China, India, southeast Asia | Upkeep: | Average |
Hardiness (USDA Zone): | 9/11 | Tolerance: | Average drought |
Publicity: | Vibrant, oblique gentle | Soil Sort: | Normal potting soil |
Time to Maturity: | 10 years (full top) | Soil pH: | 5.0-7.0 |
Spacing: | 4-6 toes | Soil Drainage: | Properly-draining |
Planting Depth: | Depth of root system (transplants) | Attracts: | Bats, birds, fig wasps, mammals (open air) |
Peak: | 6-10 toes | Makes use of: | Ornamental houseplant, potted specimen |
Unfold: | 4-6 toes | Household: | Moraceae |
Water Wants: | Average | Genus: | Ficus |
Widespread Pests and Illness: | Mealybugs, scale, spider mites; Botrytis blight, root rot | Species: | Maclellandii |
It’s Simple To Dig the Banana Leaf Fig
It’s powerful to not love banana leaf ficus, particularly when you recognize massive, shapely clumps of indoor foliage and banana-themed houseplants.
Wherever you place it in your house, you’re certain to cherish the banana leaf fig. Give it the correct TLC, and it’s certain to like you, too. As a lot as an insentient clump of greenery can, anyway.
Nonetheless have questions, feedback, or issues? The feedback part is the place to place ’em.
Have a factor for Ficus vegetation? These guides ought to make it easier to fig-ure them out:
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