Growing indoor plants is an interesting science, mastering the subtleties of which, you can create a chic flower garden with your own hands. The list of colors that are suitable for this is huge. One of the popular plants is ficus. It will complement any interior, harmoniously blending in with the style chosen by the owners of the apartment or house. How to transplant ficus on your own will be discussed in detail in the article.
Plant characteristics
Ficus Benjamin is one of the most common indoor plants. Florists love it for its unpretentiousness, ease of care and excellent decorative qualities. This flower belongs to the Mulberry family and is an evergreen tree or shrub with erect shoots. Its round stalk is covered with a grayish or light brown smooth bark.
Drooping branches form a lush crown and look very elegant thanks to beautiful smooth leaves with thin veins. Their color is saturated, deep. The leaves have an oblong-oval shape with pointed noses. Coloring varies from light to dark green. Young greens are thinner and brighter.
Leaves can be either uniformly colored or variegated. They are arranged alternately and attached to the stems with the help of petioles. In indoor conditions, the ficus does not bloom and does not bear fruit.
The birthplace of this plant is south and southeast Asia. It also occurs in northern Australia. Under natural conditions, the height of the plant sometimes reaches 30 m. When grown indoors with proper care, the flower grows to 2.5 m. Ficus develops quickly, so it needs regular transplants.
When is a transplant needed?
Rejoicing at how the tree stretches up, and admiring its lush crown, one must remember that not only the upper part of the plant, but also its root system increases. And the soil in the pot, gradually giving away nutrients, is depleted, even despite regular top dressing. To correct the situation, the plant should be transplanted.
If roots appeared from the drainage hole of the pot or the topsoil sagged, these are signs that the flower needs a transplant. Also, the need for this procedure can be signaled by a slowdown in growth and a deterioration in the appearance of the plant. But it’s better not to bring the situation to such a critical state and carry out planned transplants. How to transplant Benjamin's ficus at home will help you figure out the advice of experienced gardeners.
Transplant Dates
When is it better to transplant ficus? Practice shows that young plants need this once a year. During this time, the soil in the pot is depleted, and the roots grow and completely cover the earthen lump. Plants older than four years are transplanted every two or even three years.
When asking about when it is possible to transplant ficus, it should be remembered that at home the plant is in a state of forced rest from October to February, and during this period such procedures are contraindicated.
Therefore, the best time for a transplant is spring or early summer, when all life processes are activated. This will help the plant safely cope with stress and gain strength after transplantation. This also contributes to the increase in daylight hours.
Spring is the best time to carry out such work also because the root system must fully adapt and grow stronger before the next dormancy period, in order to provide the plant with a full supply of nutrients during the winter slowdown of metabolic processes.
Capacity requirements
How to transplant ficus at home ? Preparation for this work should begin with the selection of a suitable pot. The new tank should be a couple of centimeters higher than the previous one and as much larger in diameter. There should be drainage holes at the bottom of the pot. The day before planting, the container must be disinfected with a three percent formalin solution.
Older plants that have reached large sizes, usually do not transplant, but only replace the topsoil in the pot to a depth of up to ten centimeters.
The soil
If you are going to transplant ficus, remember: the correct preparation of the substrate plays an important role here. You can purchase ready-made specialized primer for ficus. And you can prepare the soil mixture yourself. To do this, take two parts of turf and leaf land and one part of river sand. After mixing, the earth is watered with hot water or a weak solution of potassium permanganate to destroy fungal spores and various pathogens.
Drain from expanded clay or broken brick, no more than 20% of the total soil volume, is necessarily laid on the bottom of the pot. Land before transplanting needs to be watered. Presented plant is very sensitive to soil acidity. It is necessary to ensure the same level of this indicator for each transplant. Therefore, the correct selection of substrate is very important for the further growth and development of the flower.
Transplant Preparation
How to transplant ficus in another pot? This is done by the method of transshipment. The plant is moved to a new container without destroying the earthen lump around the root system. As a result of transshipment, an additional supply of nutrient substrate occurs with minimal damage to the roots.
For transplantation you will need a thin wooden stick and a spatula for mixing the soil. So that the earthen lump does not crumble during the transplant and does not damage the roots, the flower must be watered the day before.
Florists recommend a similar procedure for two, especially if the plant is large. This will greatly simplify the task, allowing you to keep the thin roots safe and sound.
Extraction and inspection
So, we begin to transplant ficus. The first stage is its accurate extraction from the pot. To make the earth ball easier to move away from the walls, you need to knock on the outside of the container. From below, the soil is pushed with a stick through the drainage holes at the bottom.
When the plant is extracted, you should examine its roots. Healthy shoots are elastic and creamy brown. They lack signs of decay and other diseases. Such a plant can be transplanted. If there are problem areas on the roots, they must be carefully cleaned of the ground, rinsed in running water and cut the damaged roots to a healthy tissue.
Before transplanting ficus into a pot, an earthen lump is freed from the upper layer of the substrate and from particles of drainage adhering to the base of the lump. Next, they check whether the plant will fit in height in a new container. The easiest way to do this is with a ruler. It is important that the root neck of the ficus is placed a couple of centimeters below the upper edge of the pot. To achieve this correspondence, the height is adjusted by adding or removing the drainage layer at the bottom.
Landing
Before starting the procedure, a little substrate is poured into the container over the drainage layer and slightly crushed. Then an earthen lump is installed and the space between it and the walls is filled with earth, slightly compacting it as it is filled. Add soil from above to the desired level.
Watering the flower after transplantation is only necessary if the earthen lump was not wet enough. After the plant you need to provide proper care to help you survive stress and adapt to a new place.
Transplant Care
Recommendations on how to transplant ficus contain a number of rules for creating a plant comfortable conditions during the adaptation period after this process. First of all, the flower should be placed for a couple of days in a shaded place and only after this period it is placed in a permanent place.
For the first time after a transplant, a plant is watered after two to three days, and then do this as necessary, monitoring the degree of drying of the topsoil in the pot. Also, do not allow waterlogging. The flower does not tolerate stagnation of water, so watering should be carried out only when the topsoil dries.
In addition to the soil moisture level, you need to monitor its temperature, avoiding hypothermia. After the flower successfully takes root in a new place, care for it is carried out in the same way as before the transplant. By following these simple recommendations, you can provide the plant with the necessary conditions for its comfortable growth in a new place.
Ficus will be actively developed. With proper care, he will look healthy, delighting the owners with his beautiful green foliage. This unpretentious flower will be able to grow even a beginner. There are no particular difficulties in this matter.