hey everyone welcome back to my channel today's feature plant is going to be on
the ficus shivereana whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa are you sure it's shivereana could
it be shivereana could it be shi-ver-ay-na? have you tried googling? it nothing coming up
anyway if anyone knows what the correct pronunciation is feel free to drop a comment
i would love to know we're going to be going through some care tips on the ficus shivereana
note that the tips that i give you today are things that have worked well in my
environment they will differ to yours and should be served as a guideline only
as usual i'd really appreciate it if you could hit that subscribe button it would mean so so
much to me and turn on that bell icon so you get notifications so you don't miss any updates
so there's no denying it i am absolutely obsessed with ficus' in general there's something to do
with the shape of the leaves the colours and the different varieties that you can get out there
that i'm personally very drawn to today's videos can be centred around the ficus shivereana
it's a variety of the ficus elastica range which is also known as the rubber plant
it is known as rubber because it produces this milky white latex which can be used to produce
rubber there are other names for the shivereana which include the marble plant and the rubber tree
variegata so the shivereana can reach a height of 2 meters if you're actually growing it indoors
if you're planting it outside i do believe that you can grow up to about 20 metres a night
if it is grown outdoors it is recommended to be potted up because the roots can be expansive
and very invasive to the environment so there are so many varieties of the ficus out there
i actually did a video previously on the ficus technique if you haven't checked that out already
but i've also found this photo on facebook that someone contributed of their different
ficus varieties and they have so many they are absolutely beautiful look at them the main types
that you will encounter at the nurseries and hardware stores include the burgundy the ruby
the tineke and also the yellow gem the yellow gem is also known as the atlissima and i actually used
to own one before i gave it up but as you can see there are so many different varieties out there
so it's down to personal aesthetic if you're trying to choose one so i actually stumbled
upon this specimen by luck at bunnings when i was just doing my shopping one day i was like as soon
as i saw i was like i must have this plant i mean look at the speckling and the marbling that you
see on the leaves it reminds me of like the really expensive irrigated plants that you can purchase
these days but basically in rubber platform now i'm going to go straight into the care tips the
first thing that you should do when you bring it home for the first time is to allow it time to
acclimate based on personal experience i actually find the most annoying part about owning a ficus
when you bring it home for the first time is the sheer amount of time it takes to acclimate the
multiple ficus' that i have brought home have taken months to get used to their environment
i find that common signs include they start dropping leaves and they just give a little
bit of drama in your life and you're kind of like what is going on but they do take time so give it
patience and you will be rewarded after earning a few ficus' i knew of that acclimatization period
so i just kind of went straight into a repotting exercise when i purchased this one which is what
i'm going to talk about next repotting and soil mix tips ficuses prefer well-draining soil and
i've found that all my ficuses have loved and benefited from it my personal mix is a thirty
percent cacti thirty percent orchid twenty percent perlite and twenty percent charcoal mix i actually
outlined a little bit more detail in my ficus tineke video you can skip forward to about six
minutes and thirty seconds i regret not taking photos of when i actually repot this shivereana
but i did observe that the roots were quite thin and all i had to do was really shake
it out carefully but essentially a well aerated soil is your best sale when it comes to watering
ficus' in general when you research online sources say that they prefer to be on the moist side
however based on my personal experience i found that my ficus' have benefited from
allowing the soil to dry out before the next watering so my shivering is sitting in a quite a
well ventilated spot i usually have the door open every now and then just to allow air circulation
to flow through my apartment so the optimum temperatures for ficus shivereana is about
15 to 25 degrees however it has been winter here in Australia and we get temperatures of
8 to 10 degrees they will survive when it comes to lighting the vibrancy will become more pronounced
of your fica shivereana if it is sitting in higher light mine is actually sitting in bright direct
light in the mornings only for about one to two hours and is definitely benefit from that i've
noticed that the top growth is a little bit more pinkish in colour so using my ficus shivering
as an example you probably get darker greens to sort of that light green if you were sitting
in bright indirect light to medium light however i would actually recommend bright indirect to
direct light is the best but remember always avoid afternoon sun i might actually experiment
with my ficus chevron in the next couple of months and keep it in a more moderately
lit spot as opposed to brightly lit spot and just report back on the results because
i am kind of vibing these kind of darker greens as opposed to the pinkish colours these days i did
notice that when i had it in prolonged periods of bright direct light it did go red so that
was an interesting colour because these guys are normally speckled green pink orange and yellow so
let's talk about maintenance as usual with most of your plants you should be periodically giving it a
good wipe down i sometimes use a solution of neem oil as well as eco oil to wipe those leaves down
and if i'm feeling lazy and it's actually quite interesting because i don't know if it's actually
more of a lazy approach or not i will bring it to the shower and actually hose it off here's
some step-by-step footage of how i do it step one grab your plant and escort it to the bathroom i'm
gonna speed the footage up here by 400 so you don't have to suffer through my slow walking
step two take your plant out of your decorative pot this is assuming that using
a grower's pot with drainage holes which is highly recommended place it into your shower or bathtub
step three this is optional if you harvest plant stand i like to place mine in the
bath or shower to elevate my plants so i can visibly see the water drain through the bottom
step four watch me struggle as i use one hand to film this video whilst grabbing my shower
head make sure you turn the water on to about room temperature step 5 i changed the setting
of my shower hose to give the water stream a bit more pressure but give it a good hose down and
hopefully this process will help you remove any gnarly pests on your leaves just caveats that i
have very well draining soil if your soil is compact i do not recommend you do this
step six give it time to vibe out on the side and give it a chance to drain the water through the
holes step 7 give it a gentle shake to remove any excess water place your plant back in your
decorative pot and bring this outside to dry my recommendation is that this is only done in the
morning and on a warmer day to allow the leaves to dry properly as a precautionary measure make sure
that there's no direct sunlight hitting the leaves and leave it outside until the leaves are dry
step 8 finally when it's time to bring it back in pull the plant out of the decorative pot and
discard any excess water that has accumulated now it's time to just put it back in its regular spot
so there's a couple of reasons why i'll bring it to the bathroom to hose it down the first reason
is that i want to flush out the sediments and the excess in the soil and allow that to drain
through and the second reason that the force of the stream will also blast off any potential pests
so fyi i actually bought this stand from kmart for about six dollars but be careful of rust
because it is a cheap product if you do embark on this method make sure that you're doing it in
the morning and on a sunny day the last thing that you want to do is be leaving any excess
residual water on top of the leaves because that will cause bacteria and potential diseases so
what i'll do is i'll wipe down that leaf with a paper towel or a microfibre towel if i've still
observed any water on the leaves in the evening time hopefully i gave you some really useful tips
on the ficus shivereana in a nutshell i hope that was really really useful for you and if
you haven't subscribed already it would really really mean a lot to me if you do and hit that
bell icon so you don't miss any updates i have a few exciting things coming up in my next section
so stay tuned for that section stay safe stay healthy and i will see you in my next video
bye for now welcome to plant ransom bands where i showcase some cool funny interesting or helpful
content that i find online i follow a number of different plant related facebook groups and this
one caught my eye now this is a too long didn't read it so i'll just scroll to the bottom and
read the summary but freaking fungus anthracnose is characterised by necrotic spots on the leaf
surface under humid conditions brown masses of spores can form into concentric rings necrotic
spots eventually become dark brown and the leaves may fall off i thought this was a particularly
useful public service announcement preventative measures are always better than reacting i
personally ensure that i'm getting a decent amount of airflow with my plants but if you are fighting
fungus you can go grab some fungicide and treat it accordingly i'll catch you in the next one