Reproduction methods of ficus Benjamin
Ficus Benjamin is a very beautiful and unpretentious plant that attracts the eyes of guests. Often, the owners of the bush are asked to donate a shoot, which raises the question: how to propagate Benjamin's ficus without ruining your own bush?
Reproduction methods of ficus Benjamin
Cherenkovy
The easiest way to propagate Benjamin's ficus is cuttings. As seedlings, stems from the top of the crown, growing between the leaves, are suitable. You can even grow a beautiful healthy bush from a small branch with a small bud.
The step-by-step preparation of the material is as follows:
- We take a very sharp knife, disinfect it and carefully cut the branch at an angle of 45 ° C, making sure that the mother plant is 100% healthy. The length of the cut cuttings should be approximately 14-15 cm.
- Rooting is more successful in half-lignified branches that have already acquired a brown color. Each stalk used for seedling should have at least 1-2 leaves.
- A white liquid is released from the cut shoot, which, after drying, forms a dense film that prevents the formation of roots. To prevent this from happening, the juice is removed from the plant, after which they get rid of the lower leaves and cut off part of the length of the large leaves, if any.
- The twigs prepared in this way are placed on a clean, dry surface for several hours to dry.
After carrying out the above procedures, they begin to propagate by cuttings by water or soil method.
Water way
For this method of reproduction of Benjamin ficus at home, filtered water at room temperature is used. It is there that the seedlings germinate as quickly as possible. So that it does not deteriorate, a little activated carbon is thrown into the liquid.
The stalk is immersed in water so that the leaves on the stalk do not touch the water. It is advisable to put seedlings for germination on the windowsill, but so that not a single direct ray of the sun falls on the ficus. Water should be added in descending order.
To speed up the process, you can make a mini-greenhouse on the windowsill: mark the container with cuttings in a plastic bag. In this case, the structure is periodically ventilated, otherwise it will not work to propagate the stalk of Benjamin's ficus
Already at the beginning of the third week of germination at home, the bark on the shoots is covered with white dots, which means that the root system will soon develop from them. Planting into the ground should only take place when the roots grow up to 1-2 cm.
Soil method
First of all, you need to prepare the soil. To do this, take equal parts of sand, peat earth, perlite and mix everything well. A regular box is suitable for seedlings.
Sections of correctly collected and dried cuttings, before starting to reproduce Benjamin's ficus at home, should be disinfected with powdered charcoal. The soil should be slightly damp.
It is necessary to plant cuttings in the ground to a depth of 2 buds.To accelerate germination, you can create a greenhouse according to the same principle as in the first option. At the same time, one should not forget about airing.
Sections of cuttings need to be disinfected
In the future, the soil must be regularly moistened with water, after adding a root formation stimulator to it. It is advisable to alternate watering: ordinary water, water with additives, ordinary again.
As soon as young leaves appear on the table, you can be sure that the shoot has taken root. The plant must be allowed to stand in the greenhouse for some more time so that it can adapt. The greenhouse is removed gradually, every day increasing the airing time until the Benjamin's ficus is completely hardened.
Seed reproduction
If there is nowhere to take a stalk for growing a ficus, you can buy the seeds of this evergreen flower in the store. Planting must be carried out in moist, nutritious, specially prepared soil to a depth of 0.5 cm.To prepare the substrate, take one part of sod land, one part of perlite, one part of leaf humus and bone meal at the rate of 10 g per 10 liters of the mixture.
When propagating seeds, the plant needs constant care:
- the temperature where the box with seedlings is located should always be in the range of 22-26 ° С;
- throughout the entire period of germination, they regularly and moderately moisten the soil (about 3 months).
As soon as the first pair of leaves peep out of the ground, the seeds have sprouted, and the ficus can be planted.
The seed propagation method is not very popular with flower growers, since breeding takes a lot of time and there is not always a guarantee that, despite constant care, at least one seed will germinate.
Layering
This is how a flower is usually propagated, in which young shoots are poorly developed, but there are good lignified branches.
The strongest branch is selected and a ring-shaped incision is made on it, then the branch is treated with a root-stimulating agent. The incision site is wrapped in polyethylene and the bandage is tightly fixed.
As soon as the appearance of roots on the branch became noticeable through the film, it is carefully cut off with a sharp knife and planted immediately in a permanent pot.
For the plant to take root, time and constant care are needed. It must be placed in a well-lit room, where there are no drafts and the optimum air temperature is constantly maintained.
The mother plant in the place of the cut must be treated with charcoal powder.
Leaf propagation
For mass breeding of Benjamin ficus, it is best to use the leaf propagation method. To do this, a small piece of the stem with one leaf is cut from the middle section of the shoot. If everything is done carefully, several blanks can be made from one branch.
Nutrient soil is placed in a container for seedlings with a leaf and almost the entire cutting is stuck there, leaving only a leaf petiole on the surface.
The sheet is rolled up with a tube and the structure is fixed with an elastic band. For convenience, you can insert a small wooden peg inside.
The container with plantings is placed in a plastic bag and tightly closed so as to create good greenhouse conditions. Care consists in periodic airing and watering. Active growth of cuttings will begin in the fifth week.
Summarizing
These are all known ways in which Benjamin's ficus propagation is carried out. The main thing is to approach the plant with love, and it will definitely give the first roots, and then bright green young leaves, it does not matter if this is propagation by cuttings or seedlings from purchased seeds.