Hovea palm is a wonderful and unpretentious plant to care for. She needs a lot of space, under favorable conditions she is able to reach 2.5 meters. It is better to keep it in a large, high room.
Where to put the hoveya
Hovea is a southern beauty with graceful, flowing dark green leaves. To make the plant look decorative, you need to regularly wipe the dust with a damp sponge, cut off dried and yellowed leaves.
She feels good at room temperature, in winter she should not fall below + 16 ° C, otherwise the southerner stops developing. High temperature - + 25 ° C + 30 ° C - the reason to spray the plant more often. In the summer, if possible, take the palm tree out into the fresh air, give it a plentiful shower.
The plant is considered shade-tolerant, but bright diffused light will not harm it. With good illumination, the hovea has the best foliage. In order for the leaves to grow symmetrically, it must be regularly rotated around the axis. The palm tree grows slowly; for splendor, several (10-15) seedlings are grown in one pot.
How to care for a palm tree
Watering the hovea requires moderate watering; when waterlogged, the tips of the leaves turn brown, but overdried soil is harmful to it. So that the water does not stagnate, when planting in a pot, they make good drainage. In the summer, the tropical beauty is watered as the top layer of the earth dries up, in winter it is somewhat less common.
In May, the life energy of the palm tree is activated, intensive growth begins. In the period from May to September, she is given weekly dressings for palm trees or mineral complex fertilizers for indoor flowers. An infusion of nettle is suitable as an organic fertilizer.
Hovea does not like transplants, so she is worried as a last resort, when the roots fill the entire space of the pot and begin to ask outside. With a sparing transplant - by the transfer method - some of the small roots that form the felt layer are cut off with a knife. The top layer is changed annually, for the soil they take:
−2 hours of turf;
−2 h. Leafy earth;
-1 tsp peat;
-1 hour compost;
-1 hour coarse sand;
−a little wood ash.
Remove the top layer carefully, trying not to damage the roots, and add fresh soil.
The plant propagates by seeds and dividing the bush. But none of the methods give good results. Saplings from seeds grow for a long time and need greenhouse conditions - high air humidity and a temperature of +25 degrees, besides the seed material quickly loses its germination capacity, therefore it often simply does not germinate. When dividing a bush, there is a problem of survival, the plant does not tolerate transplanting well and takes root with difficulty.
Pests - spider mites, aphids - are fought in traditional ways. They are treated with chemical or biological insecticidal preparations.
