Hello Friends!
Today we will look into growing betel leaf plant at home and look into some of the important
care tips and how to propagate betel leaf plant.
Betel leaf plant (also known as piper betel or wild pepper), it is a creeper herb grown
in Asia and mostly in India and Pakistan, It belongs to Piperaceae family � the same
family to which pepper plant belongs to.
We all know its used to make a famous dessert what we love to eat specially in functions
and weddings, its called PAAN, which is chewed with beetel nut as a mouth freshener.
This is also used in various rituals and poojas in India.
Its also a medicinal herbal plant used for cough and cold.
This perennial herb is also grown in Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam.
Growing Betel leaf plant is not so difficult but you need to be aware of some of its requirements.
The betel plant or paan plant can be grown in containers, in a balcony, and even indoors
in partial sunlight.
You can also grow this plant in hanging pots.
You can see this betel plant, I got from a nursery two months back.
This was not in a healthy condition with pale colored betel leaves and not really looking
fresh and healthy.
Now applying some care tips, I got this present plant, healthy with lush green leaves and
infact I tasted the paan dessert made out of this leaf and its really tasty.
Well, Now lets talk about the care tips of betel leaf plant.
1.
Planting Season: It should be ideally planted in Spring and Early Summer, but in tropical
countries like india, it can be planted anytime of the year.
2.
Growing Habits: The betel plant is basically a creeper and a perennial plant.
It has heart shaped green leaves.
It can be either trained to grow as a creeper by offering support sticks and strings or
It can also be grown as a ground cover.
3.
Soil Requirement: Use any well drained nutrient rich soil for best results.
And also here, remember to choose a deeper container if you are growing in a pot, because,
it need to have a well developed root system to grow healthy.
4.
Sunlight: Keep it in a partial shady spot in your garden.
Do not provide too much sunlight to this plant.
But this plant prefers a hot and humid climate for its growth.
5.
Watering: It prefers a Damp soil but not soggy, so daily watering is required.
6.
Keep Plucking the betel leaves from the bottom parts of the plant for promoting its growth.
7.
Fertilizers: Occasionaly � like once in a couple of months you can provide a nitrogen
rich fertilizer like decomposed cowdung or any compost like vermicompost after raking
or tilling the top soil.
Do not use chemical fertilizers.
8.
Pest control: Sometime it might be infested with pests like red mite � for which you
can use neem oil + liquid soap mix spray.
Also if overwatering is done or in rainy season, its prone to fungus.
Pull off any infected leaves or branches to protect the plant.
And one more point is: you can propagate betel plant from stem cuttings either in water or
in soil.
I would love to experiment with the cuttings once my betel plant grows little bigger and
will make a separate video on its propagation and results.
So there we have it folks, that was our quick episode on betel plant growing at home.
If you have some more tips, please suggest them in the comments section below the video.
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Happy Gardening!