Pandanus - spiral palm

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The genus Pandanus (Pandanus Parkinson.) Has about 600 species of plants of the pandanus family that grow in tropical regions of the Old World. The name of the genus comes from the Malay local name of this plant.

Pandanus Description

Pandanus, or Pandanus (lat.Pandanus) - a genus of tree plants of the Pandanova family.

Evergreen trees or shrubs; branches forked, up to 9 m tall. Flowers in thick ears of corn. In culture, flowering is rare.

Plants with powerful aerial roots (after the roots reach the soil surface and grow into it, the lower part of the trunk begins to die with roots, and thus the plant is raised above the soil surface and rests on the so-called stilted roots) - P. furcatus Roxb.

For someone who loves unpretentious fast-growing plants, pandanus is best suited. Pandanus is often confused with bromeliads and dracenes, since it is similar in some ways to both of them. With age, the pandanus takes the form of a false palm of several tens of centimeters, with long, arcuately curved leaves and with a trunk that seems to be spirally twisted due to leaf scars located on it in a spiral.

In most species of pandanus, the edges of the leaves and the middle vein below are covered with strong sharp spikes, this should be taken into account when acquiring a plant.

Pandanus is a good plant for spacious halls and conservatories. It requires a lot of space and looks spectacular only as a single plant.

Features of growing pandanus

Temperature: Prefers warm rooms with a temperature of about 20 ° C, winter minimum 16 ° C.

Lighting: Pandanus loves a bright place with bright diffused light and protection from direct sunlight.

Watering: Moderate in spring and summer, the soil should dry out, i.e., watering after about a day, from autumn watering is reduced to two times a week. Pandanus does not tolerate excess water, especially in winter, during dormancy.

Fertilizing fertilizer with liquid fertilizer for indoor plants from March to August every two weeks.

Air humidity: Intermittent spraying, although pandanuses tolerate dry air.

Transfer: Young plants are transplanted annually, adults - in two years in the spring. Soil - 1 part of turfy land, 1 part peaty, 1 part leafy, 1 part humus and 1 part sand. Good drainage is required.

Reproduction: When rosettes are affiliated with their subsidiaries, rooting is rather difficult, so rooting stimulants such as heteroauxin are best used.

Pandanus Care

Pandanus is an unpretentious plant, and it is not difficult to grow it even for beginners who love indoor floriculture. It feels best in a bright place or a slightly shaded place. Optimal for placement are windows with western or eastern exposure. In summer, on the windows of the southern exposure, the plant should be shaded from 11 to 17 hours. May put up with some lack of sunlight, but not for a long period.

With a lack of illumination, the leaves lose strength and are bent. In variegated forms with a lack of illumination, the original color of the leaves is lost.

In the summer, it can be taken out into the open air, but it should be protected from direct sunlight, from rain and draft. If you do not have the possibility of placing plants outdoors in the summer, then you should regularly ventilate the room.

In the autumn-winter period, good lighting is necessary, during this period shading is not required. You can create additional lighting using fluorescent lamps for this, placing them above the plant at a distance of 60-70 cm, for at least 8 hours a day. In the autumn-winter period, it is also necessary to ventilate the room, but drafts should be avoided. To avoid one-sided development, it is recommended to turn the pandanus pot often.

Pandanus tolerates room temperatures well. For a plant, the difference in winter and summer temperature is not important. Pandanus prefers in all seasons the temperature is not lower than 15 ° C, the optimal - in the range of 19-25 ° C.

In summer, pandanus is watered abundantly, between the irrigations the top layer of the substrate should dry. Do not allow the drying out of an earthen coma. A good result is given by lower irrigation with warm (up to 35 ° C) water. After half an hour after watering, excess water from the pan must be poured. In autumn and winter, watering pandanus is moderate or limited, depending on the temperature regime, watered two to three days after the topsoil dries.

The water used for irrigation is soft and well-settled, two to three degrees above room temperature. When watering with water at a temperature of 18 ° C or lower, the plant may become sick.

Humidity is maintained moderate. Pandanus is not recommended for spraying, as well as for washing, since water can get into the axils of the leaves, which causes the stem to rot. To increase humidity, the plant can be placed on a pallet with wet moss, expanded clay or pebbles. In this case, the bottom of the pot should not touch the water.

It is necessary to remove dust from the leaves with a slightly damp cloth (such that water does not drip when squeezing from it), wipe them from the base of the leaf to the top, since the pandanus leaves have spikes along the leaf. This procedure is best done with gloves.

The plant forms stilted roots (aerial), it is impossible to trim and remove them. To prevent them from drying out, you can cover the roots and part of the trunk with wet moss or peat, and periodically moisten. These events are especially important in the summer. At room conditions, the formation of stilted (air) roots is very rare, due to low humidity. Therefore, the plant loses resistance with age. At low humidity, the tips of the leaves dry out.

The plant needs fertilizing with flower fertilizer from March to August, either weekly or every two weeks. In autumn and winter, top dressing is performed no more than 1 time per month.

A transplant is performed as necessary when the roots are covered with an earthen lump. Young - every year, adults - every 2-3 years. Since the pandanus has very fragile roots, it is recommended to transship it (without destroying the earthen coma).

The substrate is (with Ph about 6) as follows: turfy, leafy soil, humus and sand in equal shares. For specimens older than 5 years, a heavier substrate is prepared.

The dishes are taken deep, the drainage in the pot should be at least one third of the pot. When transplanting, the pandanus, despite the presence of aerial roots, is not buried in the substrate - they are planted in a new pot at the same level as it used to grow. When adult pandanuses are planted in large volumes (box, tub), the amount of turf land is increased to 3 parts. Kadok plants do not need transplanting, only an annual addition of a fresh portion of the earth is needed.

Before transshipment or transplantation, it is recommended that the thorny pandanus leaves be gathered up “in a bundle” and tied up.

Pandanus breeding

Propagated by seeds, division of the bush, cuttings.

Seed propagation

Some species are propagated by seed. Seeds, not freeing from fertility, are sown immediately after harvest. Sow the seeds in a mixture of sheet soil and sand or peat and sand (1: 1). Cover crops with a glass cap or a transparent plastic bag, maintain a temperature of at least 25 ° C, constantly spray and regularly ventilate.

When using mini-greenhouses with lower heating, seed germination is faster. Shoots appear in groups after 2-4 weeks. Upon reaching the seedlings of two three leaves, they are planted one at a time in pots filled with earth mixtures of equal parts of turf, sheet land and sand.

Propagation by cuttings

When propagated by cuttings, they are harvested from lateral shoots. Cuttings are cut at least 20 cm long, since short roots form poorly. Place the sections sprinkled with charcoal powder and dried. After this, the cuttings are planted in an earth mixture from equal parts of peat land and sand. Cover with a glass cap or a transparent plastic bag.

Maintain a temperature of 25-28 ° C, constantly sprayed and regularly ventilated. Rooted cuttings in 1.5-2 months. When using root formation stimulants and mini-greenhouses, rooting is faster.

Reproduction by daughter sockets

Pandanus is successfully propagated by daughter rosettes, which appear in large numbers on an adult plant both at the base of the trunk and in the axils of the leaves. The daughter rosettes of the pandanus are separated from the mother plant when they have reached a length of about 20 cm and already have roots. In order to stimulate the growth of their roots, the base of the daughter rosettes is loosely covered with sphagnum (you can fix the moss); moss is regularly and only slightly moistened from a fine spray (Epin can be added to water).

The most favorable time for plant propagation is mid-spring. Cut out sockets must be dried for one day and planted in containers, on the bottom of which a drainage layer (1.5-2 cm) from shards and coarse sand is laid, then a 6-7 cm layer of turf and a layer (3-4 cm) of washed sand. Sockets are planted to a depth of 2 cm, compacted tightly, sprinkled abundantly and covered with glass.

Humidity should be kept moderate all the time. Apply lower heating (soil temperature should not be lower than 22 ° C). Rooting outlets occurs after 1-1.5 months. For rooting, you can use phytohormones.

After two months, the cuttings need to be transplanted into a pot with a mixture that consists of three parts of leafy, two parts of sod land and one part of sand.

Types of Pandanus

Pandanus Veitch or Vicha (Pandanus veitchii) Synonym: Pandanus Hiding (Pandanus tectorius Parkinson.). Homeland - Southeast Asia. An evergreen tree-like plant with a shortened trunk and aerial roots-supports extending from it - (over time, the lower part of the trunk dies, and the plant rests on stilted roots).

The leaves are arranged spirally along the trunk, closely aligned like rosettes, tightly encircling each other with their bases, 60-90 cm long, 5-8 cm wide, leathery, green in the center, painted with wide white longitudinal stripes along the edge. The edges of the leaf are seated with strong whitish spikes with brown tips. It blooms in rooms very rarely. Under favorable room conditions, a pandanus can reach 1.5 m in 10 years.

A variety of variegata is often used in culture.

Pandanus utilis (Pandanus utilis) A large plant, in natural conditions, is trees up to 20 meters tall, in enclosed spaces, its size is more modest (2-3 m). Old plants branch after the formation of inflorescences; in culture, rarely or not at all branch. Leaves are screw-shaped, 1-1.5 m long and 5-10 cm wide, stiff, directly directed, dark green, reddish thorns are densely located at the edges of the leaf blade, the keel is also seated with thorns.

Pandanus Sanderi It grows in the tropical rainforests of the Malay Archipelago (presumably on the island of Timor).

The trunk is short. Leaves up to 80 cm long and 5 cm wide, finely prickly at the edges, dark green, with narrow yellow longitudinal stripes.

Pandanus hiding (Pandanus tectorius). Shrub, in natural conditions, growing up to 3-4 meters in height, branched, with stilted roots. Aerial roots formed in the lower part of the stem grow into the substrate, the trunk below the place of their formation rots, and the plant rests on these stilted roots. The leaves are linear, there is a clear anisophyllia (various leaf sizes), the apex is significantly narrowing, with sharp white spines. Edible sweet fruits with a very pleasant taste, yellow, orange, red.

Possible difficulties in growing pandanus

Dry brown leaf tips are due to too dry air. Pandanusi, although they do not require frequent spraying, but if the apartment has central heating, you will have to regularly moisten the air. Also, this may be due to lack of nutrition, since pandanus is a fast-growing plant, regular feeding in spring and summer is necessary. Perhaps there is a lack of moisture in the substrate: the drying of an earthen coma is unacceptable, the earth should be slightly moist.

Leaves lose their variegation, and new leaves are not large - due to lack of light. Pandanus does not like direct sunlight, but the place for it should be bright, especially in winter.

Leaves become light, almost white due to excess light, high calcium content in the soil and hard watering.

Damaged: scabbard, mealybug, spider mite.

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