The ability to have an exotic plant at home attracts people. Palm trees, lemons, nuts adorn apartments and delight the eye of exotic lovers. The article tells how to grow indoor banana at home, on the street. Photos will help you navigate the process of selection, care, reproduction of the plant.
What a room banana looks like, to which family it belongs
The birthplace of banana is considered to be Southeast Asia. In nature, the height of the trunk reaches 12 meters. Of course, such a giant is not suitable for home. Therefore, dwarf varieties up to 2 meters high are placed in the apartment. This begs the question: is a banana palm tree or grass?
Dwarf varieties
Note! An indoor banana is not a tree or shrub. It is a perennial grass. Fruits are a berry, not a fruit at all.
Plant Features:
- height 1.5-2 meters;
- leaves in full length up to 2 meters, with a width of up to 50 centimeters;
- the plant trunk is formed by a dense superposition of the base of the leaves on each other and is a pseudostem;
- the trunk simultaneously performs the role of the root system and is underground;
- indoor banana releases a flower from a pseudostem, immediately dying after fruiting.
The tree lives for about 5-6 years.
The berry found wide application in medicine. It is used for gallstone disease, diseases of the liver and gastrointestinal tract. It has an enveloping effect, which is useful for stomach ulcers and duodenal ulcers, in case of exacerbation. Fiber helps improve digestion. Potassium contained in fruits has a beneficial effect on the functioning of the heart.
Important! Scientists say that people who eat bananas are more optimistic about life.
Initially, bananas grew only in the tropics. At the beginning of the 15th century, Portuguese sailors brought them to Europe from Africa. Starting to propagate them in the Canary Islands, gradually developed cold-resistant varieties that spread throughout the world. Since the 16th century, bananas have become popular in the Caribbean and Central America.
Features banana care indoor home
At home, the fruits grow only if you carefully care for the plant.
Temperature
A tropical native loves the heat. High temperature is vital for him - should be above room temperature - 25-30 ° C, not dropping below 15 ° C. Low temperatures slow down growth and contribute to disease.
Given that this is a southern plant, you need a lot of sun. When leaving at home, a room banana is suitable for windows on the south or east side. On cloudy days and in winter, lighting is required. The quality of lighting is directly related to the gain in green mass. In poor lighting, grass growth slows down, the fruits cease to be tied, that is, it will not bear fruit.
Additional illumination
Watering and humidity
Watering is recommended to be carried out infrequently, but plentifully, to wet the whole earth. Indicator - drying of the top crust of the earth by 1-2 centimeters. If water is taken from the tap, it is imperative to stand up for the evaporation of chlorine. Sometimes instead of watering, you can arrange a warm shower, like in the tropics.
Leaves are sprayed daily in the summer. In winter, once a week is enough.
Humidity above 65% is recommended to the plant. It is difficult to organize at home, so you need a daily wet wipe of the leaves. High humidity and the sun are the main components of successful cultivation.
Priming
Soil requires periodic loosening for air access to the roots and destruction of the soil crust. Suitable topsoil taken near linden, hazel, birch or acacia. Adding sand, wood ash and humus, the composition is mixed, calcined. At the bottom of the dishes laid out drainage, sand and then the soil. The soil should be loose, with a neutral PH.
Top dressing
You need to feed regularly. For this, organic substances are suitable - vermicompost or an infusion of grass. Organics is supplemented with universal mineral fertilizers. A fed plant needs a blackout for a day.
How to grow in open ground, where and under what conditions is it possible
Low temperatures of open ground are not tolerated by all types of home bananas. For example, heat-loving Ecuadorian species we certainly do not grow. But adapted cold-resistant species can be grown in the subtropics. In our country, this is the region of Sochi and Crimea.
Basio banana palm - its planting and care in the open ground are characteristic throughout Japan and the Black Sea. Gardeners of Europe also use its cold resistance, growing on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. With frost and freezing temperatures, the plant is additionally insulated. The earth around the root should not freeze.
Basio palm blossomed in Crimea
When and how it blooms
With good care, the banana tree indoor blooms in the third year of life. Already in mid-summer can throw an arrow among the leaves in the form of an umbrella. By this time, the plant should have 16-17 leaves. From the upper leaf in the shape of a heart comes a large panicle of inflorescence with green or brownish flowers. As flowering, panicle grows and hangs down. Panicle growth can last up to 2-3 months.
Indoor banana flowers are heterosexual. Pollination of women gives a “bunch” - a brush of fruits that look like beans. Over time, the leaves fall off.
Important! During the flowering and fruiting period, it is necessary to feed with nitrogen-phosphoric fertilizers.
How to propagate indoor banana
Dwarf bananas are usually propagated by seeds, children or in a vegetative way. Each of them has its own characteristics.
Seeds
If desired, you can get the seeds yourself:
- wrap a yellow banana in a plastic film until the skin is completely darkened and the fruit softens;
- peel the fruit and cut along without affecting the core;
- extract the seeds and arrange on paper, napkin;
- take away the full seeds, and throw out the flat ones;
- wash the seeds from the pulp;
- pour water for 2-3 days;
- Rinse again and dry well.
Attention! A plant grown from seeds is completely decorative - the fruits are unsuitable for food. With this method, only wild game can be grown. But uncultivated grass will be stronger and more resistant to disease.
Seeds germinate in sphagnum moss or coconut fiber. This material is purchased in special stores, after which it is steamed with steam, mixed with perlite, spilled with a weak solution of potassium permanganate. An alternative is a mixture of peat and sand in a ratio of 3/1.
For germination, a drainage material is placed in the container, with a substrate on top, 5-6 cm thick. The seed coat is broken by scratching or cutting. The container must be closed with polyethylene to create a greenhouse effect. Daytime temperatures can reach 33 ° C, nighttime - 20-25 ° C. Germination - a long procedure, up to 2-3 months.
Kids
Varietal indoor plants bananas are grown only from root processes, dividing the rhizome into parts. With this reproduction, all the qualities of the mother plant are preserved.
Reproduction from root processes
Vegetatively
Cultivars propagate and vegetatively from an adult plant. This can accelerate the ripening process, and as a result, the fruits will grow in 2 years.
Transplant: when necessary, how to conduct it correctly
When buying a seedling in a store, or growing it yourself, you need to pay attention to the need for grass transplantation as it grows and the root system grows. In the store, plants are sold in tiny pots, so you need to transplant them within a week. In this case, the roots and stem should be examined for pests, insect larvae.
Under favorable conditions, up to several transplants per year may be required. An indicator for the transplant will be the roots protruding above the ground. When planting in a new pot, it is necessary to make good drainage - stagnation of water can destroy the roots.
Additional Information! The size of the pot, as it grows older, changes from 2 to 50 liters. Drainage should occupy about a third of the tank. It should not be transplanted immediately into a large pot - insufficient filling with the root system will cause acidification of the soil.
The next container for transplantation should be 3-4 centimeters larger than the previous one. Transplanting a banana, it is necessary to deepen to form additional roots. Adult plants require updating the topsoil. It is better to transplant the plant by transshipment in order to avoid damage to the root system.
Possible problems in growing indoor banana
Given the exotic nature of the plant and its inability to suit our conditions, characteristic problems arise.
Wither leaves
Here is some of them:
- Grass drops leaves. This is usually due to a lack of nutrients. It is necessary to carry out planned and unplanned top dressing, and then change the pot to a larger one.
- The tips of the leaves begin to dry. This is due to reduced humidity. It is necessary to increase the frequency of spraying and wet wiping the leaves. If necessary, the overall humidity of the room increases. To do this, an air humidifier is installed or an open container with water is placed nearby.
- The lower leaves fall off. This is usually associated with hypothermia or being in a draft. It is recommended to remove from a cold window or increase the temperature.
- The appearance of pests. Often affected by spider mites and thrips. When they appear, the leaves are treated with an insecticide.
Palm tree in the garden of a private house
- Mucous rot of the stem indicates waterlogging in the cold period of time. To combat this phenomenon, it is necessary to reduce watering, remove rotted parts of the grass, treat the plant with fungicide.
- Small and pale foliage indicates a lack of lighting. This usually occurs in the winter. It is corrected by placing the plant in a more sunny area or by increasing artificial lighting.
- There is no growth in spring. The grass does not have enough nutrition, so additional nutrition is necessary.
- The bottom of the stem darkens and becomes soft. This is a formidable sign of plant disease. Waterlogging of the soil and stagnation of water leads to rotting of the base of the stem.
Growing a room banana is a very troublesome affair. However, a banana tree is a home plant. The efforts will be rewarded with the surprise of friends and acquaintances with such an exotic object. In the Black Sea regions, cold-resistant varieties can be placed right on the street so that they please not only their owner, but also those around them.
It is enough to grow this culture on your own to understand that a banana is a home plant.
