Here’s my newest houseplant and Plant of the Month, a variegated Schefflera Arboricola, also known as the Umbrella Plant. It’s native to Hawaii, and couldn’t be more welcome in my apartment right now. Having been snowed in all last weekend and a few days this week, it has been a welcome sight.
It looks a little rough right now because I just repotted it, but it should perk up pretty soon. This tropical plant is a fairly popular houseplant, as it can tolerate neglect pretty well (not to say that you should neglect your plants, but you get the point). Anyways, they prefer bright light, but will adapt well enough to other light levels. One important thing to keep in mind with tropicals like this is that they like moisture!
Moisture is my biggest issue with keeping my houseplants looking nice through the winter. It’s important to give them the humid conditions they need, without harming them. The fastest, and easiest way to give them some moisture is to mist them once a day or so.
But when it’s the dead of winter and my apartment is really dry, that just won’t cut it. In order to give the plant adequate moisture, you need to get a wide but shallow container and put rocks and water in it. This way you can set the plant on the rocks, but keep it from sitting in the water so it won’t harm the root system! I may end up doing this during the winter, and I think it’s a great idea because you can easily incorporate it into your household decorations. Just spend 99 cents for a bag of those nice looking rocks; and your plants will be growing in style!
Thanks so much for this great post! There are a bunch of these at work and I love them. When I saw a tiny one on sale at the grocery store, I grabbed it. I had no idea what it was called or how to take care of it. Especially now that it is winter and my house is so dry. Poor thing is dropping its leaves like crazy. Now I know what to do. And what to call it!
How big does this plant get? I have seen umbrella plants about five foot tall. They are impressive specimins. I bought one years ago, but whatever I did I could not keep it alive. I suspect that my house is too cold for it.
Yours looks happy enough though.
I have such affection for umbrella plants. One fueled my love of gardening. Her name was Edie, and my dad gave me her as a cutting when I was eight. I kept until I was out of college, dragging from dorm room to ratty apartment and then back again. Unfortunately, the moving probably killed her. I’ll miss her always! 😀
(I’m not usually this “crazy cat lady” with my plants, but when you had one since you were eight. . . )
Thanks for your timely post. I am always looking for easy care and easy to grow houseplants!
My plant is 32 years old and you posted the care of this plant but this plant is very hard to kill. When my mom had to stay by my sister when she was sick, this plant was the only one surviving and without water. When she passed I took the plant and now three more sets of stems grew and it is thriving. It is one truly amazing plant.
hi eveyone i came across this site looking for info on my umbrella plant so i was reading all the postes this is very helpful i have a pretty one growing i have it in my kitchen window i call her glory she is so pretty if i knew how to add a pic on here i would. thanks for great postes.
Hello to all. Thanks a bunch for your posts. I have a big schefflera that was my neighbor’s who gave it to my mother who gave her to me! I know this schef is well over 18 years old!!! Anyway, she’s been dropping her leaves lately. From info gathered here, I think it may be too dry in my home now. I live in Colorado, have central air and so it’s very dry in here. I will buy rocks and place them in the big drip pan I have and put her on it. Hopefully she will come out of her funk. She makes me crazy but I wouldn’t give her up for the world.
Hello to all. Thanks a bunch for your posts. I have a big schefflera that was my neighbor’s who gave it to my mother who gave her to me! I know this schef is well over 18 years old!!! Anyway, she’s been dropping her leaves lately. From info gathered here, I think it may be too dry in my home now. I live in Colorado, have central air and so it’s very dry in here. I will buy rocks and place them and water in the big drip pan I have and put her on it. Hopefully she will come out of her funk. She makes me crazy but I wouldn’t give her up for the world.
Hello again. I think I may have discovered the problem with my schef. She hates it when she is exposed to a draft! She did particularly well in this new spot and I didn’t realize that the spot would expose her to a draft as she is in front of a cold air return. I am moving her today to another spot that is more consistent in temp. I’ll give it a month and report back. Hope this helps!
I have one of these plants that I inherited from my in-laws when they moved out of state. It is at least 20 years old, and has never grown very much. One day I got this stupid idea to put it outside on our patio, hoping it would grow faster and be happier. Unfortunately, the leaves turned yellow and it has dropped about half of them. 🙁 Anyone know how to get them to grow taller? Mine has been about 3 ft tall for many years. Do I need to put it in a bigger pot again?
I know I said that I would wait one month before I got back, but had to share good news and maybe provide a tip to Karol. First, my good news is that moving the schef out of the draft of cold and hot air returns had done the trick! No more dropping of leaves!
Karol, when my mom received this schef from my neighbor, she pruned it severely. I thought the darn thing would die, but it didn’t and it came back beautifully. She also re-potted it. I am now thinking I need to re-pot in a larger pot as well. I am sure that it is root bound by now. I am hoping I will have as much luck fumbling with this plant as my mom had. Good luck to both of us!
I just wanted to tell a story about my Schefflera. I rescued it from mulch dump about 2 years ago when it was barely alive. After two years of TLC it now stands about 2.5 feet in height and recently produced some bright red berries, and is getting ready to grow some more. I feel it was a worthy save. My plant is the center of attraction among my houseplant garden.
Rachel
Thanks for all of your wonderful posts. It sure seems like many of you have a great fondness for these plants. Karol, the one thing I found about theses plants is that they don’t like to be moved around a lot. It seems that they get acclimated to their surroundings, and drop leaves a lot if moved to a new place. I’m not certain as to how you can get it to grow taller as mine is still fairly small, but if you haven’t re-potted it in a while it may be root bound which could stunt growth. Otherwise, if re-potting doesn’t work, you could always take yvonnenco’s advice and try pruning it!
Thanks again for all your comments!
Jocelyn
We have a couple of these plants in our apartment and they are lovely but right now it’s the middle of winter and one of them is losing leaves daily. We’ve kept it moist but not wet and have regularly kept the dust and mites off it. At the moment I’m keeping it in the bathroom (it’s quite a small bathroom) to combat the winter dryness. Will post back to see how it goes.
Is there a possibility that something is at the roots?
Thanks for the advice!
My neighbor is moving and asked if I wanted her house plants. I said “sure!”. Then I saw this huge 5 foot “houseplant”. It is this Umbrella Plant and I have learned a lot about it from this page. My question…. I would like to trim it up and give it a better shape. What is the best way to go about it? It is bushy at the bottom and narrow at the top. If I cut some off, will it root in water?
Thanks for your help!
Hey Angie! Not sure where you are, but a Schef will not minda a little haircut. The branches (not the leaflets) can be rooted– once you cut them off, then dip them in rooting hormone (like Rootone) and stick them in a good peat compost/perlite mix and water gently. Keep the soil most and mist the plant and keep it in sun. That’s how I got my cutting 4 years ago– it was 8″ tall. Now it’s about 4 feet and has 8 or so branches with big bunches of berries that are turning from green to orange, then will go red. I live in Southeast Texas, near the coast, zone 9b. So, schef’s are really happy here outside, pretty much year-round. The woman I got it from lived down the road from me and was whacking away at her plant with a machete. It was about 25 feet tall and probably 35 feet wide!!! No lie! It had dozens of stems from where it had fallen over, broken off, and where air roots had reached down and re-attached into the ground! Amazing! It’s a tropical tree, so if you are in zone 8 or 9 or below, try putting that puppy in the ground!
Thanks for the information. I finally know the name of my plant. I had this plant for about 5 years now and it grew from a single leaf branch to a 2 feet tall 1.5 feet wide leafy plant. When I first got this plant I hated it so much. It was scrony and grayish I neglected it pretty badly but it never died, it grew! And it grew on me! I still only water it once in every 2 weeks with a cup of water when inside the house. It does not seem to like to be watered more than that. In the winter it is inside the house in a sheltered corner away from heat and cold air. As May rolls by I put it out on the porch into a sheltered area, and besides watering it once a week I shower the entire plant at least once a month to refresh it. Last spring I repotted it into a much larger container in May. It grew twice the size on the porch by the time it was time to bring it in in October. I am only waiting for it to grow some berries at last….
I’ve got a schefflera at work that I inherited from my co-worker. It was a foot tall by a foot wide & small & bushy when she left it behind. I dumped my left over glass of water in it everyday & in a few months it grew like crazy to 5 feet tall by 5 feet wide. The branches are very long & the leaves enormous – some a foot long. It sprouted a bud every few weeks & I could actually see it grow inches through out the day! It was amazing! My cubicle turned into a jungle with the giant umbrella branched, but I absolutely loved it until…someone passed by & knocked it over. The new sprouts at the top broke off & since then nothing has grown. It’s been months now. How do I fix it? How can I make it sprout new buds again when each new bud came out of the prior one that now is broken off?