Ficus trees, which have over 800 species, are native to Indo Australian region, Central and South America and Africa. Lets have a look at their propagation techniques, common varieties and interesting facts.
Propagation
Starting new plants is known as propagation. You can easily multiply the number of your ficus plants by a few methods like cutting and seed germination. Cutting is an easy method to propagate ficus. Take about 5 nodes long cutting and prune all leaves and branches off it except a couple of leaves at the top. Dip the base in rooting hormone(not mandatory). Plant this cutting in rich moist soil. Keep the soil moist all the time.
You can easily obtain ficus seeds if you have a ficus tree that produces fruit. Interestingly, fruits of some ficus species have several thousand seeds in a single fruit. Needless to say, seeds can also be bought from sellers, but there is nothing like fresh organic seeds. Now plant these seeds in rich moist soil. Add some Peat moss to the soil (not mandatory). Keep the soil moist. It can take months for the seedling to emerge.
Some Common Varieties
Although this plant has many varieties but some of these varieties have become very popular among growers. Some of these are mentioned below.
Ficus Midnight
Ficus Starlight
Ficus Hispida
Ficus Benjamina
Ficus Golden King
Ficus Bonsai
Interesting Facts
There are over 800 identified species of ficus.
It is an important tree from a religious point of view and have much importance in quite a few religions including Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.
One of the oldest ficus trees is in Sri Lanka which according to history records was planted back in 288 B.C.
Many ficus species produce edible fruit.
Ficus trees are estimated to have been on earth for 60 to 80 million years.