In the well-heated living room and office, houseplants have a difficult time. It's a good thing that there are exotic gems, like the birch fig with its multifaceted species. Once you get to know its advantages, you'll want more copies. You can safely leave your wallet in it, because it's that easy to multiply your Benjamini.
How to propagate a Ficus Benjamini?
To propagate a Ficus Benjamini, cut off 15 cm long shoot tips in spring, remove the lower leaves and place these cuttings in moist peat sand or coconut fiber substrate. Then cover the pot with a plastic bag and place it in a partially shaded, warm place until new roots form.
Cut Benjamin cuttings and let them root – Here’s how it works
Spring is the best time to propagate a Ficus benjamina using cuttings. This choice of date gives the offshoots enough time to root before the tricky winter season. How to proceed professionally:
- Cut shoot tips with a length of 15 cm
- Place the scissors under a pair of leaves or leaf nodes
- Pluck the leaves in the lower half
- Fill the cultivation pots with peat sand (€6.00 on Amazon) or coconut fiber substrate and moisten
- Insert 2 or 3 cuttings in each
Put a plastic bag over each pot. Wooden sticks act as spacers so that there are no points of contact between the plastic and the offshoots. In a warm, partially shaded window seat, spray the cuttings and substrate regularly without causing waterlogging. The emergence of fresh leaves signals that the hood can be removed.
Once the cuttings have rooted through their pot, they are repotted in pot plant soil enriched with perlite, sand or lava granules. You can promote bushy, compact growth by deadheading the cuttings of a birch fig after repotting. To do this, cut the shoot tips back by about a third.
Green-leaved varieties root in a glass of water
The offshoots of a green-leaved birch fig are so robust that they root in a glass of water. Place the half-defoliated cuttings in a container with boiled water on the partially shaded, warm windowsill. Add a bit of charcoal to prevent rot from forming. Once root strands about 3 cm long have developed, pot your young ones in a mix of standard soil and lava granules.
Tip
To take cuttings, please take the birch fig outside. Thanks to this caution, living and working spaces are spared from contamination by the sticky, toxic latex. Afterwards, rinse the plant briefly with soft water and let it dry before it returns to its location in the house.
