Hi everyone I'm Corbin and this is Plant
Basics
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support so today we are going to talk about an
old favorite of mine my Philodendron Squamiferum you guys
have seen this plant in a couple of videos already
and it's really been in constant growth since I got it and unfurling leaf
after leaf with these gorgeous fuzzy petioles which is
why I actually love it so much. Philodendron Squamiferum
hails from tropical South America where it grows in the jungles of Brazil
Ecuador Colombia and Peru so it's very widespread in the wild
I think that can probably also be why it's such an
easy grow plant because it grows in such a wide
range of habitats. It's often found as an epiphyte in the wild and like all
philodendrons the plant morphs as it
grows which means that a juvenile plant might look nothing like a mature
plant and this has caused some confusion with
some collectors thinking that their
juvenile plant is a completely different species
so my plant is permanently here in my office slash
grow space where it gets bright indirect light through this
window over there and that is very similar to how this plant would grow in
the wild just snaking up tree trunks
with a part of the plant being in sunlight and parts of the plant being
in shade so yeah and I do think that it would
probably be able to grow in more diminished light however
I would personally want to place it in bright light
keep it in constant growth so it can produce more leaves and more petioles
because this plant is in my office first and it grows
next to my humidifier it is exposed to 60 to 65 percent
the humidity although at the moment because the
door is closed it says 75 and I do think it will probably be okay
with a bit of low humidity but I would aim to keep it above fifty percent
as this is a tropical plant and it hails
from the rain forest but Philodendrons do have quite
leathery leaves so I do think that they can take
lower humidity so because I do have a humidifier in my space and it's quite a small space I also have
a fan which I keep on like during the day to
keep the air circulating because that's extremely important if you're going to
have humidity that's higher than
60 to keep the air moving because otherwise, you can encourage
fungus growth and mold on your plants and also again if
you take it back to its natural
environment it will constantly be in the breeze or
wind so so I would aim to keep the air
nice and fresh and buoyant all the time so you can increase humidity around your
plants without a humidifier by keeping vessels of water around your
plant and as the water evaporates it will
increase humidity in the vicinity of your plants
you can also group plants together and that will also increase humidity and
you can also place your plant on a tray of
moist pebbles which will also help in increasing
humidity in the vicinity of your plant so I
water my plants about once a week as it is
in a small container and this room does get
warm so my plant does dry out quite quickly some sources in my research have actually
said that Philodendron Squamiferum needs to be kept quite moist because
they love moisture and again then others have said that they need to
kept dry so I aim to keep it in the
middle of that continuum and let my plant dry out
slightly in between waterings always being
conscious not to let my plant stand in any
water because that will encourage a root rot
so my plant is in need of a repot and a restake again because it is growing
quite big and becoming quite unstable in the pot. I'll put a
link up on the screen of when I restaked this plant last time I
think it was probably about six months ago and the plant at that
time if I remember correctly was about this size (50cm)
and now it's (1.5m) and the mixture I
use for my plants would be a mixture of coco coir
sphagnum moss and well draining potting soil along with some milled orchid bark
and that results in a very fast draining
mixture with lots of air
around the roots which is really important especially if you consider
that in the wild this plant is often found growing
as an epiphyte and that really stimulates
the kind of like growing media that it would grow in the wild.
When repotting your plant you can also
increase the drainage in the potting media by adding some pumice
or gravel. When I repotted my plant I repotted it into one size bigger
because I don't believe in over potting plants but however
if you do notice that your plant might have a root rot (due to overpotting) you can combat this
by watering it with a mixture of water and hydrogen peroxide and that
should kill off any of the fungus
growth from root rot. In my opinion Philodendron Squamiferum is actually a very easy care
house plant that deserves to be in any collection
and they are also becoming much easier to find than what they used to be
I forgot to add in a clip of the fertilizer I use so here we go so i use a mixture of either organic fertilizers or I use
inorganic fertilizers. The fertilizer I use on my Squamiferum would be
either the organic fertilizers that I use so it would be kelp, worm castings
or a tea made from worm castings or I also use
aN inorganic fertilizer like universal houseplant fertilizer
about twice a month. If you guys have any questions, please
don't hesitate to leave them in the comment section below I always
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