Schefflera - New Growth for Spring

Little baby umbrellas

The Schefflera gave me a bit of a fright last Winter becasue it's so low maintenance that I didn't know if I was doing anything wrong by neglecting it completely or if I should bring it inside to shelter it from the rain and cold.


I learnt eventually that the Schefflera is a tropical plant and loves the rain well, thank God for that because we got quite a lot last year.  The one thing that it hates is the cold but it never gets that cold here, the minimum temperature at night goes down to about 40 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celcius) and the plant did not seem to be affected by this.

The plant went dormant thoughout the Winter months and I did not see any growth at all.  This got me a little worried at first as I thought that the plant was getting too much water and was dying on me but I saw no difference in leaf coloration or the stems so I monitored it occasionally and let it be.


Now it's Spring and finally I am seeing new leaves coming out.  The plant went in full bloom as the months started getting warmer again around the end of February and it is now showing small leaves (they are not exactly buds) all over the place.  It looks like it's going to go into a growth surge pretty soon.


I also started noticing that it's requiring more water than normal.  I never gave the plant any fertiliser, only watering occasionally when needed.  Now it seems that it requires water every three to four days.  That's another indication that the plant is getting ready to grow some more.