What's up my plant people? Devon back again with another video. Welcome to my channel
Plant Vibrations. If this is your first time, check out some of my other videos. I have like
a couple hundred at this point, but if you are a returning plant lover, welcome back
Today I wanted to talk about one of my favorite statement plants inside the home
That is the tree philodendron. The common name is tree philodendron. The scientific Latin name
is kind of a bit confusing previously philodendron salum slash philodendron biphenitum slash
thomatophyllum biphenitum no matter what the latin name really is it's a very easily
distinguished plant inside the home beloved for its gorgeous lobed foliage that is often
it's noted for having like eight to ten of these lobes. You can see these are all of the lobes and
inside the home it's just a really cool statement plant to put in the corner to put somewhere where
you see it all the time because these plants can grow quite large. I have mine in just a small
little eight inch pot because we don't have a lot of space inside this small apartment but if you
have more space you can gradually increase it to like a 12 inch pot. For most of us that's about
as big and heavy as we can actually physically manage to move around the home
If you are stronger and have stronger arms than me, you can put it in an even larger container
Outside in the wild in their native areas of South America, such as Brazil and Argentina
these can grow into tree-like proportions, growing like 15 feet tall and with a very large wide expanse
The cool thing is when you see these out in the wild, I'm here in Bogota, Colombia, and I see them all over the place growing outside year-round
They will actually create these lovely trunks that are quite thick. They're bigger than my bicep for sure when they're growing outside all year-round, getting that wonderful climatic exposure
But inside the home, they are truly a statement plant. They are as easy to grow as our beloved snake plant, Sansevieria, now Dracaena
But they have a totally different form totally different look these are perfect for the corners for next to your
furniture they fill out you know these are kind of like the indoor shrub and With their large foliage the foliage will actually get this is like baby size foliage right now they get much much larger you know probably 24 inches long and like
18 inches wide over time and they're also very long-lived plants now when it comes to care
like our beloved snake plants these will do phenomenally in brightly lit conditions
or in a little bit dimmer conditions, especially if you live in the northern hemisphere
where you have short winter days where they don't get a lot of light
they're not going to care. You don't need to give them any supplementary light in the wintertime like you would other succulents
or plants like that. Likewise, they also don't need to be in that full southern exposed window
I have mine. So in this window over here, this is the southern exposed window
and it's out of the reach of the sunlight. So you can see if I move over here, I'm kind of moving
into the sun. I keep mine a little bit further out and I reserve that extra sunny area for plants
that really need that high level of sunlight all the time. So in terms of watering, the watering
regimen for these plants is also very easy. They have very thick, robust root systems that will
graciously use the water when you give it to them, but they're not, you don't need to be, you know
really overly concerned about the watering regimen for these plants like some of our other plants like
anthuriums might need to be babied with the water. These plants I water, I water this one about once
a week. It has these beautiful roots that use up that water. It dries out and then I water it again
it's really it's really that simple and I actually watered this this morning
before I had the idea of creating this video or else I should have waited but
because it doesn't mind if you give it a little bit extra water from time to
time I'll just show you guys how much I generally water it at any given time I
just give it a nice little watering I I have the rule of thumb about watering my
house plants less water but more often. It's kind of like a 180 to what you would think about for
your outdoor plants. You want to water them heavily and deeply and wait until, you know
you want to have water your outdoor plants really heavily and deeply until the water is really
coming out the bottom. But when it comes to the house plants, I like to give it less water
more often that really stay like kind of staves away any sort of fungus gnats or anything that
that might be lingering or wanting to take root, take over your plant So I like to give my philodernum a little bit of water every three to four days and that about enough Now if you have these large leaves you can see
they will get a little bit dusty. It's normal, it's just like any piece of furniture in your home
except for this is living furniture. Now when it comes to cleaning these leaves I have a dry towel
and I normally just kind of just dust it off like that and that really does the trick. Now if you
want to do a little bit deeper you can also get just wet with a little bit of
water and just kind of wipe down every leaf every lobe just like that and they
will immediately look shinier and glossier you don't you can also do a
little bit of soap added in if you want to just a single drop of soap in a
little tub of water and that is really enough soap to keep them cleaned and
healthy you can see they look a lot better with just a nice little scrub down on every three months
is really all that you need to do now if you're thinking about adding a nice like shrubby plant
to your indoor garden this is really a wonderful option I would classify it along with like a
Sheffalera as some of my favorite indoor shrubs. And if you're wondering how I like to keep my
soil healthy, one thing that I like to do is I do like to keep this one a little bit situated above
the watering tray. I have this handy dandy wooden plank thing that I bought with a tray underneath
it. Like I was saying, I generally don't water enough for water to seep through, but if water
does seep through, it will be caught in this orange tray rather than sitting in the tray
underneath, you know, connected. I don't want to let this sit in too much. I don't want to let it
sit in water. It's not going to like that. It's not used to that out in the wild. So try to respect
what it likes out in the wild while you're growing it inside the home. But if you're looking for a
really easy, easy indoor plant with really beautiful large foliage that's going to live for a long time
they can grow enormously large if you let it, if you want it to, this is a really great option
Another thing that I do like to recommend is during the warm months, you know, late spring
summer and early fall when the nights are above like 50-55 degrees Fahrenheit and the days are warm as well, put it outside
They going to grow infinitely more quickly when they allowed to be outside in the summer with that warm air rather
than indoors all year round. But they will be just fine growing inside the home 365 days out of the
year. Now if you do move it outside in the summertime, make sure to gradually do so. I have
other videos showing how to gradually move your plants outside for the summer because these would
definitely burn if you just place it out in the direct light. Furthermore, even
once they've adjusted to the full light, you don't need to put this in full
direct southern exposed sunlight. You know, morning sun is exactly what these plants would want to thrive and to grow and to bring you that beautiful
plant life joy. I think that covers just about everything. You know, fertilizing
is another thing. If you want to grow your plants a little bit more quickly, I
I typically will fertilize all of my house plants about once a month in just a really kind of like low-key balanced 10-10-10
Or sometimes I'll do like a 10-20-10 if I want to, you know, if it's a heavily flowering plant
This one is not a super, it's about the foliage. So a balanced fertilizer is perfect
Oh yeah, I should mention about the flowers. they have pretty indiscriminate flowers the flowers aren't that cool okay they're cool but
they're they're not anything showy it's really about the really about the foliage one interesting
thing about the flowers of this tree philodendron like some of the other aeroids some of the other
araceae family plants is that they create these spays which are their flowers that actually create
Outside, they create a lot of heat, actually. It's really quite interesting
And outside in the wild, when they do create those flowers and release that heat
it attracts the pollinating bugs that they want, which is kind of cool
That's kind of a side note. For most of us, if we're growing them indoors all year round
they're probably not going to get flowers. They're probably not going to grow trunks that are four inches thick
or grow 15 feet tall either. but they will stay into beautiful plants that are going to grow inside our homes all year round, year after year after year
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the video. If you have any further questions, make sure to comment below your questions and I will certainly answer them
And stick around for more videos. I try to post them every single week, a short video during the week and a longer video in the weekend
so we can stay up to tune with all of our plants that we love and adore
Anyways, I'll catch you guys later. Ciao