Tropical trees make exotic additions to indoor gardens. With so many types on the market, every indoor gardener can find one or more which will thrive under the growing conditions he gives other potted plants.
Wide Selection Of Tropical Trees
Trek to the greenhouse or page through a specialist’s catalog to select the tree you find most appealing. Before buying, find out whether the tree thrives in your light conditions.
There’s a wide selection available, including the following:
- Frilly-leaf aralias
- Needle-bearing araucaria
- Glossy-leaf schefflera
- Broad-leaf ficus
- Full-leaved podocarpus
- Decorative dracaena
Then there are the citruses — lemon, lime, orange, and others — which are clothed in handsome foliage and give you a bonus of fragrant flowers and crops of colorful fruit.
Basic Culture
While trees vary in their growing requirements, some basic cultural rules apply to all.
If you want the tree to grow fast, give it good light, fertilize it twice a month during its growing season and repot it as often as necessary.
Clean the foliage weekly by spraying it with tepid water. Leaf-shining sprays will give leaves added luster.
Many tropical trees are subject to pests such as mealy bugs, scale, and red spiders, but a weekly whiff from a house plant aerosol bomb keeps trees pest free.
A general soil mixture, fine for most tropical trees, can be made from equal parts of sandy garden soil and peat moss—top dress with soil about every six months. Proper watering is important to tree growth.
A thorough job done once a week is preferable to sprinkling the topsoil daily.
Increase humidity by setting potted trees in a dish of wet pebbles or sand. Or grow them pot-in-pot by setting the potted tree inside a larger pot and filling the space with sphagnum moss or peat moss.
Keep this packing moist at all times.
Tropical trees grow best in temperatures of 65° to 70° degrees Fahrenheit during the day, with a drop of 10° degrees Fahrenheit at night.
If you have successfully grown philodendrons or African violets, your climate will also suit the trees.
Aralias For Fancy Foliage
Aralias are easy to grow, and their foliage is indeed diverse. For example, the leaves of Aralia balfouriana resemble a white margined geranium leaf.
Slender bronze-red tapering leaves are characteristic of Aralia elegantissima.
I think the Chinese angelica, Aralia Chinensis, is the most beautiful of all. Its feathery green foliage droops gracefully.
Grow aralias in a well-lighted spot near an east or south window. Pinching out the new top growth keeps them bushy.
Cuttings that are taken in the spring root easily in moistened vermiculite, horticultural grade perlite, or sand.
Araucaria For Fine Form
Araucaria excelsa (Norfolk pine) is a symmetrical beauty that’s easy to grow indoors. Its evergreen branches form a horizontal platform.
Children often call my plant a “little Christmas tree.”
This plant tolerates a low light area such as a north window but grows more rapidly in stronger light.
Although you can keep Norfolk pine in a fairly small pot, its roots should never become dry, or the plant may start shriveling.
If your plant grows too large, propagate a new one by cutting off the top shoot and rooting it in your favorite medium.
Propagation with side shoots produces ungainly plants.
Citruses For Flowers And Fruit
You can purchase delightful potted orange, lemon, lime, tangerine, and kumquat trees of especially dwarfed varieties.
Citrus has smooth glossy foliage, blooms several times a year, and fruit follows the flowers. Many of them have edible fruit.
My ‘Ponderosa’ lemon is a great favorite with guests. Grown in the window garden produces fruit weighing nearly a pound.
A greenhouse-grown specimen will produce fruit weighing nearly two pounds!
Citrus trees need a soil mixture that is somewhat heavier than other trees. I like to use two parts of good garden soil to one part of peat moss.
If the leaves turn yellow and drop, the plant may need watering with an acid plant food such as recommended for azaleas or holly.
Grow these trees in your sunniest window and summer them on a shaded patio, in the lath house, or in a shaded outdoor garden area.
Nipping out the branch tips once or twice a year keeps trees shapely. Propagate citrus trees by cuttings taken in the spring.
Ficus And Schefflera—Tolerant Trees
If you need a tree for a weak light area, try Ficus, the fig or rubber plant, or the nearly indestructible Schefflera.
These handsome trees will tolerate a maximum of hot, dry air, even lack of attention to watering and fertilizing, and still put on a fair show.
Give them a little care about lighting, watering, and fertilizing; they also turn into exotic tropicals.
Ficus pandurata, often called fiddle-leaf fig, has tough glossy green fiddle-shaped leaves. It grows 8’ to 10’ feet tall and makes a marvelous tree for tub planting.
Ficus elastica, the Indian rubber plant, has large oval-shaped green leaves. If you like variegated foliage, try green and white ‘Variegata’ or yellow and white ‘Doescheri.’
Propagate Ficus from cuttings. When older plants shed too many leaves and show too much bare trunk, change them into fresh-looking symmetrical plants by air layering them.
Here’s what to do:
- Cut a ring around the stem a few inches below the leaves.
- Cover the ring with a wad of moist sphagnum moss.
- Cover the moss with plastic and tie it to the tree trunk to keep out air.
Roots soon form in the moss, and within 6 to 8 weeks, you can cut off the new plant and pot it in a four- to six-inch pot.
Wax leaf Schefflera actinophylla tolerates weak light and underpotting. In fact, it can grow for years in a four-inch pot.
But if you want it to turn into a lush tropical umbrella tree, give it light, water, and food and repot it whenever necessary.
Podocarpus For Neat Growth
Podocarpus nagi is a neat leafy tree with a smooth purplish trunk and small, leathery dark green leaves that are evergreen.
It grows in reasonably weak light near a north window but grows more compactly and bushy with good light.
Dracaena For Modern Decor
For a truly different tree—a real conversation piece—grow Dracaena marginata.
This plant grows in a gloomy corner but produces more colorful fan-shaped foliage when placed near an east window.
Its light brown trunk has stiff green leaves with margins. Any time you decide you want a shorter dracaena, just air-layer it as suggested for ficus.
Podocarpus nagi, a small-leafed tropical tree of unusual symmetry, looks elegant in any surroundings.
44659 by Peggy Schulz