How to Grow Velvet Plant: Avoid Direct Strong Light and Keep Up with Watering

SummarySoil: The velvet plant needs fertile, loose, acidic soil. Light and temperature: Avoid overly strong light; in summer and early autumn, shade the velvet plant. The most suitable growing temperature is 18°C-25°C. Water: During the growing season, provide sufficient water, keep the potting soil moist but not waterlogged, and also spray water around it to maintain air humidity. Fertilizing: Different fertilizing methods are needed at each stage. Pruning: Cut off weak branches and leaves as well as forked branches to reduce nutrient loss.

The velvet plant is a green herbaceous foliage plant with underground rhizomes. The plant is only 50-60cm tall, and its leaves are relatively large. It is also called spotted leaf, velvet leaf, or zebra; it is called zebra because its leaves have stripes like a zebra's.

I. Soil and Repotting

For planting the velvet plant, choose fertile, loose, acidic soil; heavy clay soil must not be used. You can use two-thirds leaf mold or peat soil plus one-third perlite and a small amount of base fertilizer to make a suitable growing medium for the velvet plant. Repotting or changing the soil can be done every spring. When new buds sprout, old soil can be removed and replaced with new growing medium. This ensures the soil's nutrient content and keeps the soil loose and breathable.

II. Light and Temperature

Light: The velvet plant is not suitable for growing in shady places or places with overly strong light during its growth and development period, because overly strong light will directly scorch the branches and leaves, while in shady places it cannot carry out photosynthesis. Therefore, in summer and early autumn, appropriate shading is needed. In summer and early autumn, shade the velvet plant by about 70%-80%, while in winter shading only needs to be 30%-40%, which can effectively avoid direct sunlight.

Temperature: The most suitable growing temperature for the velvet plant is 18-25°C. In summer, because the temperature is high and water evaporates quickly, when the temperature reaches above 32°C, it needs to be promptly placed in a cool, ventilated place for care. In winter, if the temperature is below 13°C, the plant will stop growing and may even freeze to death in severe cases. It is best to keep the room temperature at around 15°C.

III. Suitable Water

The velvet plant has strict water requirements. During the growing season, sufficient water must be provided, and the potting soil must always be kept moist, not too dry and not too wet, and water must not accumulate in the pot. In spring, summer, and autumn, frequently spray water on the leaf surface and around the velvet plant to achieve air humidity of around 70%-80%.

IV. Fertilizing Requirements

During the growth stage of the velvet plant, apply cake fertilizer liquid once every 1-2 weeks. In spring, fertilize with liquid fertilizer, and the concentration should gradually increase. From summer to around the first 15 days of autumn, apply a liquid fertilizer mainly based on phosphorus fertilizer and potassium fertilizer once. After fertilizing, wash the fertilizer off the leaf surface with water to avoid fertilizer burn. To also enhance the plant's cold resistance, after fertilizing, spray the leaf surface about once every week with a 0.2%-0.3% potassium dihydrogen phosphate solution, spraying 2-3 times in total. In winter, the velvet plant must not be fertilized.

V. Pruning

The velvet plant is a relatively pruning-tolerant plant. Simply cut off overly long branches, crossing forked branches, or branches and leaves that look relatively weak. This can make the whole velvet plant more attractive and also reduce the loss of a large amount of nutrients.

VI. Precautions

1. In winter, the temperature for the velvet plant should not be lower than 13°C, because it will cause freezing damage to the plant or stop its growth. In summer, it is prone to wilting, so the temperature must not be higher than 35°C, or water will be severely lost.

2. White spots on the leaves of the velvet plant are caused by leaf spot disease, and sometimes dead leaves also form, affecting the growth of the velvet plant. You can first remove the dead leaves and then spray with Bordeaux mixture until the leaf surface returns to normal.