How to grow Zamioculcas at home
How to grow Zamioculcas at home
Zamioculcas (Zamioculcas zamilifolia (Lodd.) Engl., 1905) is a succulent plant belonging to the Araceae family of Tanzania origin with fleshy stems, erect or arched, up to 50-60 cm long and oval fleshy leaves, green in color dark. Its name is due to the leaf appearance very similar to the plants of the genus Zamia and is also known as the “gem of Zanzibar” and also the plant of Padre Pio. In this sheet we see his needs and how to grow Zamioculcas at home. It is an aesthetically very beautiful plant that, being accustomed to climates that alternate drought with very rainy seasons, is a fairly rustic plant. For the cultivation in the apartment it must be placed in a large pot, preparing a substratum possibly with a mixture of sand, pumice stone with small texture and soil for apartment plants in the proportion of volume respectively of 30, 20 and 50%. This substrate will allow you a good drainage system.
Irrigation should be carried out only when the superficial part has dried up; the need is greater in the period from the first warm spring to the beginning of autumn. In winter, irrigation should be carried out very rarely. For the fertilization you can very economically resort to the integration with coffee grounds, then allocating the renewal of fertility with the repotting that must be done every two years. The repotting is carried out by extracting the block of earth, cleaning the root parts dry or marching and placing the plant inside a slightly larger container (if possible) with a mixture of substrate prepared as before. After this operation the plant should be left for a few days to rest in a place not exposed to sunlight. As for the flowering this is very rare in the apartment while in its natural habitat produces white or greenish panicle inflorescences, similar in appearance to those of the calle.
Among the adversities we see which are the biggest: we remember above all the cochineals (especially the cottons) that can be eliminated with white oils and Marseilles soap; other adversity is represented by the root rots and these are almost always due to stagnations due either due to excess water or due to the predisposition of a little permeable and sandy substratum.