The easy-care elephant's foot is an extremely attractive plant. The flower is also very decorative. The small white flowers are borne on long panicles that protrude from the top of the elephant's foot crown. An impressive sight!
How do I promote flowering in elephant foot as a houseplant?
The elephant's foot rarely blooms as a houseplant, usually after many years and under optimal conditions. To promote flowering, it is advisable to place the plant outside in a sheltered, not too sunny location in summer and to provide additional light with a plant lamp in winter.
Once the flowering period is over, after a while the elephant's foot will grow a new shoot next to the flower base. So it doesn't grow straight anymore. If this “weird” sight bothers you, you can also cut off the elephant’s foot.
Does the elephant's foot also bloom as a houseplant?
If you only keep your elephant's foot as a houseplant, it will probably never bloom. For this, plants need optimal growth conditions. This includes a lot of warmth and a lot of light. But even then it would take many years until the first flowering. However, the elephant foot is a very decorative eye-catcher even without flowers.
How can I make the elephant's foot bloom?
Apparently the elephant's foot does very well when it spends the summer outside. This seems to put him in a “bright mood”. The ideal place is protected from the wind and not in the blazing midday sun.
The elephant's foot definitely needs to be brought back into the apartment in good time. He still needs a lot of light there. Additional lighting, for example with a special plant or daylight lamp (€21.00 on Amazon), is definitely recommended. After all, he comes from an area with relatively uniform daylight, so he doesn't particularly like the German winter.
The most important things in brief:
- only blooms after a few or many years, and usually not at all if kept indoors
- Summer freshness in the garden seems to stimulate flowering
- small white flowers on long panicles
- new shoots after flowering
Tip
Even without flowers, the elephant's foot is an extremely decorative houseplant, don't let it spoil your fun.
