Real Coconut Trees Are Some Of The Most Capricious. Home Care. Photo

2023 Author: Ava Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 07:13

Real coconut palms, surprising in nature with their gigantic size and generous harvest of giant nuts, are considered not the most suitable plants for indoor culture. But, nevertheless, homemade coconut trees can be found in almost every flower shop, and many hobbyists even grow their coconut trees from purchased nuts. Whichever way the coconut tree comes to you, it is worth preparing for trouble: despite its beauty, it is one of the most difficult (if not the most difficult) palm trees to grow. And only experienced and very attentive flower growers can save it, and even then only for a few years. Caring for her will require not just regular, but super-careful.

Homemade version of coconut

There are so many palms on sale today with the name coconut that even experienced growers can get confused. Consultants often praise Weddel coconuts, and other types of palm trees as an indoor version of the coconut, compact, beautiful and unpretentious. But such pinnate and fan-shaped beauties have almost nothing to do with coconut palms. Most often, under the guise of coconuts, we sell Lytocaryum (Lytocaryum weddellianum and other species of the genus) and Butia, the name of which is still found as a synonym for coconut. They are also not easy to grow palm trees, but they are very far from the real coconut. Only one species of palm belongs to the genus Coconut - Cocos nucifera. It is simply impossible to confuse this palm with any other.

The coconut palm (Cocos nucifera) is not only tropical, but usually only found in coastal areas. Walnut coconuts are classified as feathery palms and are quite large in size. Indoors and even greenhouses, coconuts can grow up to only 3 meters. But since it is very difficult to preserve a palm tree until adulthood, coconuts are limited to much more modest parameters. Considered a fast-growing palm tree, the coconut develops as a slender, bushy plant with a high trunk and an asymmetrical crown-apex made of wide and unevenly feathery leaves, the number of which in an adult palm can reach 35 vai.

The trunk is formed and "stretched" gradually, it has vertical cracks and rings from falling leaves, the expansion at the base is small. The slope of the trunk is determined by the growth of the nut, it is more or less pronounced. The leaves of a coconut tree change with age. Young they are almost whole, but gradually the cuts on the leaf plates become deeper, and the wide leaves turn into feathery and long. Indoor coconuts often split the leaves into just a couple of segments. In the coconut palm, the leaf plates and their lobes, like the petioles, are very rigid. The length of the leaves is up to 2 - 3 meters. The flowering of walnut coconut is impossible not only in indoor conditions, but also in greenhouse conditions.

Coconut palms look very attractive: the contrast between a half-buried nut, from which at first a slender and small, and then more and more graceful and interesting palm tree rises, adds decorativeness to it. Palm nuts are shed at such a considerable age that it is almost impossible to wait for this in a room culture.

Coconut tree care at home

It is believed that indoor coconuts can "hold out" - even with very good selection of conditions and the most careful care - only 2-3 years. This palm is indeed very difficult to grow and should rather be grown for experimentation or if you want to test your skills. As a stably ornamental palm tree, it would be a very big mistake to buy coconut. Firstly, because of the love of the sun, it cannot be placed in the interior. And secondly, the risk of loss is always higher than the probability of success. But if you want to give it a try, prepare yourself for relentless care.

Lighting for coconut tree

The need to provide the coconut palm with very bright lighting throughout the year is largely due to all the difficulties in growing this plant. Walnut coconut is not just a light-loving plant. It needs long daylight hours all year round. And the only lighting option that suits this palm tree would be a sunny spot on the southern windowsill or a place with artificial lighting. In winter, supplementary lighting is welcome anywhere.

Comfortable temperature

This is one of the most thermophilic palms, for which the minimum permissible temperatures are limited by the value of short-term drops to 16-17 degrees Celsius. Throughout the year, the coconut tree will prefer heat over moderate temperatures. In summer, the coconut feels best at a temperature of 23 degrees Celsius, but if the indicators remain above 21 degrees, then there should be no difficulties with the selection of premises.

The coconut tree will need constant access to fresh air and regular ventilation. But it will not be so easy to carry them out if the palm tree does not like drafts and drastic changes in the environment.

Coconut watering and air humidity

To preserve your coconut tree, you will need to keep the substrate moisture stable. Even a single drying out of the earthy coma, and even more so the lack of stable watering or prolonged drying out, can lead to the rapid death of the palm tree. The soil for walnut coconut must always remain moist. Between waterings, only a few top centimeters of the soil are allowed to dry. The coconut is afraid of excessive watering and dampness, therefore, for this culture, you will have to control the degree of drying of the substrate constantly. The approximate frequency of watering is about 3 times a week in summer and once a week in winter. In summer, abundant watering can be carried out, and from autumn to spring, less water is used.

But if the difficulties with watering are well known to everyone who grows exotic plants and various flowering beauties, and they are almost standard for any demanding plant, then the coconut palm will surprise anyone with its intolerance to dry air. This species needs very high humidity levels - from 70% and not less. Even a slight decrease in these values leads to a loss of decorative effect. And we are talking not only about the dry tips of the leaves of the coconut palm, but the fronds themselves gradually dry out and disappear. And the lower the humidity, the faster the palm tree dies. To create optimal conditions only by spraying, you will have to carry out these procedures not only in the morning and in the evening, but also up to 5-6 times a day. For a coconut tree, it is better to install large pallets with wet gravel, moss or expanded clay,and even better - to maintain air humidity with special humidifying installations.

Both in spraying and in watering for a coconut palm, you can use only settled, soft and warm water.

Top dressing for walnut coconut

The coconut tree needs very specific feeding. For this plant, it is best to use not fertilizer for decorative leafy plants or special preparations for palm trees, but a mixture of fertilizers for bonsai or citrus fruits. Top dressing is applied only during the period of active development with a frequency of 1 time in 2 weeks in summer and 1 time per month in winter (reducing the dose of fertilizers by 2 times). It is possible to refuse winter dressing of coconut palm, but then the risk of loss of decorativeness increases. You can carry out top dressing according to the principle of garden plants: apply fertilizer at the beginning of spring growth, then 2-3 times in the summer, and the last dressing should be done in mid-autumn. But in this case, highly concentrated fertilizers are used, which increases the risk of death.

Pruning coconut

On a coconut palm, the formation is not carried out, but it still needs periodic cleaning. Dried or damaged leaves are cut from the plant. But at the same time, you need to be careful: you can only cut off completely dry fronds, but you should not touch only slightly changed color and even half dry leaves.

Coconut transplant and substrate

Frequent transplants of a coconut tree are not needed. She is afraid of trauma to the roots and reacts painfully to changing containers. If you buy an imported palm tree, then it is better to transplant it in the coming spring into a new container (in no case until the end of the period of full adaptation to indoor conditions and quarantine). But the optimal frequency of transplants is once every 2 years for compact and nut-preserving palms and only as needed, once every 4-6 years - for adults. In years when the transplant is not carried out, the top layer of the substrate must be replaced.

The substrate for growing walnut coconut is selected from fibrous, rough, but very permeable soil mixtures. Special ready-made palm substrates are suitable. If you prepare the soil mixture yourself, mix in equal parts sand, peat, sod soil, clay, humus and expanded clay or agroperlite. A mixture of sod soil with heather and sand in equal proportions is also suitable.

Coconut palms are not transplanted, but overloaded, trying to avoid even the slightest contact with the roots. You need to be especially careful when removing the plant: any trauma to the taproot, even as a result of a complex removal from the previous container, will be fatal. When transplanting a coconut, care should be taken that the nut is not completely filled up: for the palm, the same level of deepening is observed as in the previous container - approximately half of the nut. But a taller planting is not as dangerous as overfilling the nut with substrate. If a palm tree has dropped a nut, we are talking about a very old plant, then the level of deepening is still the same. A very high drainage layer is laid at the bottom of the containers.

Containers for a coconut palm are usually taken large enough, increasing their diameter not by 2-3 cm, but by 4-6 cm, in order to get rid of the need to carry out frequent transplants even at a young age.

Diseases and pests of the coconut tree

Indoor conditions, coconut palms are annoyed by 2 main "enemies" - mealybugs and various types of rot. But there are also scale insects and spider mites on the palm tree, especially active in violation of care in terms of air humidification.

Common growing problems:

• drying out tips and leaves in case of irrigation or feeding disorders;
• rolling leaves during overflow or drought;
• slow growth and lack of new leaves with improper feeding or the need for transplantation;
• darkening and wilting of leaves in the cold.

Reproduction of the coconut tree

This is one of the hardest palm trees to propagate and can only be obtained from seeds. But that doesn't stop many from trying to grow a coconut tree on their own.

For cultivation, only ripe, ripe and fresh coconuts are used. The coconut is germinated in moist peat, without burying the nut completely, but leaving on the surface a "top" with holes for germination (2 - 3 points through which the juice is usually drained). Pre-soaking in water from 45 to 80 degrees is encouraged, but little is displayed at the germination rate.

Above the container with a coconut palm must be covered with glass or film, creating greenhouse conditions and traditionally airing it daily. For germination, it is necessary to maintain a stable temperature of 25 degrees Celsius. The release of a single embryo can take up to 5-6 months.

The coconut is transplanted immediately after the emergence of the sprout, deepening the nut less, only up to half. The walnut is not separated on its own: gradually, when the need for it disappears, the palm tree will "throw off" it itself. Until then, he is not touched, but protected from any contacts.