Norfolk Island Pine Tree Care

Hey, what's up garden friends? How's everybody doing? I hope you're good because I am great and this is not all going to fit into frame. Hmm. I guess that's a little better except, hey, hi, can we focus please? There we go. All right. So, in one of my more recent videos I talked about rosemaries and now I want to talk about Norfolk Island pines. It's a really common plant. They're out at the nurseries all over the place right now because it's the holiday season and these cute little pine trees are popping up all over the place. You see them at the grocery stores, at any type of market, at the hardware stores. They're all packaged up nice and pretty in these little foil things that my cats love these. Your cats like these things. They make so much crinkly noise. Can't let them too close to them though because they end up eating it and that's not good for them. It's a festive type plant because they're tiny little pine trees except these plants, the Norfolk Island pines, which is, what is it? Araucaria heterophylla. The Norfolk Island pine, which actually, not a pine tree even though it really does look like one, doesn't it? And they get massive. That's not something a lot of people are too concerned about because unfortunately these are kind of like a tossaway plant. People buy them during the winter time. They give them someone as a gift or they keep it as a gift and then they just sort of throw them away or they die. There's a lot of different things that happen with them but you don't often see them as a house plant in large sizes. Now even though these can take very brief cold spells, they really prefer to be warmer in a frost-free climate. So zones 10 and up, maybe warmer parts of 9 and up. Really not going to do great below 40 degrees, not for a prolonged period of time. But if you're keeping this as a house plant, you don't really need to worry about that. It really only matters when it comes to when to bring it inside. Just bring it inside before temperatures drop below 50 degrees at night time. As these are popping up at all the different garden centers and all over the place to purchase them for the holidays. They're all dressed up and cute with ornaments on them and oftentimes sprinkled up with some glitter. I'm not a huge fan of though it's pretty. Very, very, very messy. These guys in their smaller state really are not representative how these look when they get bigger. When the Norfolk Island Pine gets to be a large tree, it is so cool looking. Actually they start to look pretty cool before they're even that big. Generally by the time they're just a few feet tall, they'll start to show some neat characteristics. Needles on these guys are very, very, very soft, very pliable. They don't really candle out like other evergreens do or other piney, sprucey type plants where basically like little cones start to come up on them. You can break those up and whatnot when you want to encourage a different type of growth. With these, where you cut it is where it stops. So it's best to avoid pruning unless it's to remove dead foliage. No back buds on these guys. As you can see, there are a fair amount of trunks in here. That's not going to be how this will stay maybe for a couple of years, but this plant, these Norfolk Island Pine, they can grow up to two feet a year in their optimal conditions. Maxing out around 100 feet in the coastal US where they can be grown and other areas even larger than that. Obviously that's not going to work as a house plant, not at that size, but they tend to grow much slower indoors. For my purposes this year, I only needed these little guys. I didn't need any big ones because I'm going to be planting these up and doing something else with them and that'll be in a separate video. I'm just going to go ahead and undo this bow here and pull this guy out so we can have a look at what's going on in here. So as you can see there, not only was this wrapped in foil, it's also in a plastic liner. The problem with this is this isn't going to allow for drainage even though, oh wow, that's like, is this stapled in there? What's the deal? Change the title of this video to Unboxing a Norfolk Island Pine. Okay, yeah, there we go. There's glitter everywhere. Not as attractive, but it is better. You want to make sure that those holes are there, that these can drain freely. One of the tricks with these pines is to make sure they get as much sunlight as possible in the home. Everything I'm going to be talking about is indoors, by the way, if I hadn't mentioned that. So indoors, as much sunlight as possible. Generally from one direction is a little bit better and then make sure that you rotate the plants every so often, maybe every other week just to have more of an even growth on them as to not let them dry out for very long also. Probably no more than a day. You can just use your finger to do a soil test. If that top inch or so is dry, give it a good watering until that water is running all the way out the bottom of the pot. Sometimes with the Norfolk Island Pines, they will start to show that they need watering when it's too late. So if you're basing it off of how the plant looks, once they've started to kind of droop a little bit and brown out, sometimes it's too late. And one of the reasons it's so important that the water flushes through the bottom of the pot is to ensure that you're giving this plant a heavy drink. A heavy drink is important because these often have very weak roots. There's usually not a lot going on inside the pots when it comes to their root systems. It takes them a little bit longer, a few years for them to start establishing themselves. And you can see this guy rocking all over the place. Clearly this one probably isn't rooted in there very well at all. Their roots just usually are not very well developed. So I'm going to pull this up so we can have a look at the roots. And this one actually isn't that bad. I've seen much, much, much worse than this. You can see that it's potted up in a very, very peaty potting as well, which is going to help retain some moisture. I would probably prefer it have not quite this much peat in it because I don't want it to stay stopping wet for too terribly long. So considering the size of the plant that's up here, I would prefer to see the roots coming up a little bit higher, but it's been getting good deep watering. Those roots are down low. They're starting to move around. This is a fairly healthy plant. Now I have dirt on my phone. There have been times in the past when I've picked these guys up to do like winter arrangements with them and they had like next to nothing as far as roots go on them. So that was a nice surprise. One of the things that make these a decent plant to keep in the house, other than the fact they get huge. So when you take that into factor, that's not the best house plant, but I mean, so does a ficus. Those get gigantic too. Their growth is going to be slower in a pot, that's for sure. But what I was going to say is that they do tend to have kind of a dormancy sort of period. Not really a sort of, it's a dormant period. During the spring and summer, maybe early fall, it depends on where you live. When temperatures are above that 45-50 degree mark, you can keep them outside. And of course, bring them in the house in the fall winter time. I would recommend before you do that, start planning several weeks in advance before you move your plants inside and start to gradually reduce the amount of light they're getting so they can be a little bit more accustomed to being indoors. Because no matter what you do, no matter how much sun is coming through your windows, it's not the same as full sun outside where it's not filtered through the glass. Just helps ease the transition a little bit. So now that they're indoors, as much light as possible. Don't let them sit in their water, but make sure they are watered frequently. Placing a tray underneath them works really, really well. You can, like I've done in other videos I've shown, make sure you have gravel in them and that the pot is sitting above the water. That way, there's water in there to evaporate and provide humidity to the plant. Having a more humid environment is going to help reduce browning on the foliage. If you live in a very dry area, like my winters are very, very dry here, spray bottles come in very nifty, go ahead and just give them a mist every now and then. It's quick and easy and it helps prevent those tips from browning, from their needles from browning out. Brown tips are usually a sign that they need more water. If you notice that the branches are starting to droop a little bit, that's also a sign that they need more watering. Yellowing also, that usually means more watering. Unfortunately, it also sometimes means it's been getting too much water. That's why I said to be safe, make sure that it's not sitting in something where it can't drain like those foil packs. Foils make lovely, lovely packaging to give them away as a gift, but not for the longevity of the plant. That'll probably kill them. They don't want to be sitting in their water. It's not going to make for a very happy pine. Not pine, Norfolk Island pine. All-purpose balanced fertilizer is usually what's recommended. Something like a fishmeal fertilizer, they like that a lot too. I always like to talk about where do the plants come from. These grow in coastal areas and they are in rocky, sandy soils that drains very, very freely, but they're also areas that have a decent amount of precipitation normally. And that's why I've been saying they like that frequent watering, but they don't necessarily want to be sitting in it. They're used to water moving right through their roots. Since during the wintertime, they're indoors. I mean, not for everybody. You might grow these outside. That's, that's not what we're talking about here. They really don't need to be fertilized. I don't ever fertilize mine during the wintertime, partially because it's really hard for me to get enough light on these guys in the wintertime. I don't have any south facing windows that have bright, bright, bright, intense light. And so what can end up happening is if you're fertilizing them and they're not getting the right amount of sunlight, you can actually start to get some really leggy and weird looking plants. That leggy growth is occurring because the plant isn't getting the light it would get outdoors. It's not really inactive growth. However, it's receiving fertilizer and that fertilizer is giving the plant the energy to go ahead and put on some growth, but the plant isn't necessarily getting the light that it needs to have stout, short, compact growth. Not that these are stout, compact plants, but in contrast to being a leggy plant. So they'll spread out, they'll lean and whatnot because you're giving them fertilizer and telling the plant, go on, grow, do your thing. But really in wintertime, it's best to just let them chill, keep them watered and just let them chill. They'll be okay. They don't need fertilizing. In the springtime though, you'll start to see some cute little, this actually kind of has some on it, which is probably just because of where they were grown. It'll start to push out some cute little green tips. It'll start coming up from the very top of the plant up here. You can kind of see those little buds in there. Those will eventually in the springtime, when this goes back into active growth, those will start to branch out and spread, basically form a whole new section, just like you see right here, but up here. And then, so as soon as you start to see some type of movement in that top piece there, any type of change, that's when it's time to go ahead and start fertilizing. I don't typically keep these as houseplants because my aesthetic is more on the tropical side than on the pine tree looking side, even though these look really cool when they get bigger. I just don't often see them for sale in a larger size to start out with, so I don't really bother. Because like I said, generally it takes them a few feet, about three feet, four feet tall, sometimes two feet, depending on how they were grown. For them to start showing the really, really neat characteristics of why I think that these are such cool looking plants, why most people think they're such cool looking plants. If I stumble upon one that's the right price and a decent size, then I'll go ahead and get one because they look really cool. But for now, I mean, they're just, they're more gifts and for other people when trying to do something sort of fun and wintery. Now I was out doing some Christmas shopping and, well, that happened. It was a good deal. I don't know what my point was there. Completely lost track of what I was saying. Anyways, my point I was going to make though is that if you are giving these as a gift, even though these wrappers look really, really cool, maybe you know someone who doesn't necessarily have a green thumb. Why not go ahead and buy a pot to put it in, and preferably one that has a hole. This one does not have a hole. I'll drill a hole in it later. For now, I'm just going to pretend there's a hole in there and that I've drilled one in there. If you get the right size pot, you don't really even have to do much. You can just set it right in there. Okay, well, that looks like garbage. In a situation like this where the pot's sticking up, I'd probably add some moss around the side or some ribbon. Or even better, you can keep it in that foil and just tear the bottom of the foil out and have that coming out the top. That would look cute. Or even better, just go ahead and repot the plant completely. Do so, like I said, make sure that you're using a pot that has a hole in the bottom. I'm just pretending there's a hole in the bottom of this one for right now. And a cactus soil works really well for these guys. The reason for that being is that it doesn't hold on to the moisture for too terribly long. You really have to make sure that they stay watered frequently if you're going to go that route. It just makes it so much easier to avoid the plant dying back because of root rot, because of water building up down here, and it's just not being a happy camper. Typically, cactus soils tend to have much better aeration because it's a loose soil. Air can move through it, more oxygen, and that does help encourage root growth too with the plants that prefer that. Most plants, really. As I mentioned, I can't really repot these right now just because I have a separate project going on with these that will be in a separate video. I don't want to repot it and then repot it and repot it because, like I said, they have weak roots. They probably wouldn't appreciate being repotted over and over and over again. But when it comes time to do that, I'll be more detailed in that video. Might seem a little bit silly to have two separate videos on these guys, but I just like the idea of being able to have a video that's really more just about the care, what to do with these indoors, and transitioning through the seasons in a separate video. That way, when it comes time to pot them up and do something fun with them, I can just dive in and just play around with it and say, hey, if you want to know more about taking care of the plant, then check out this other video. I will also say the foliage on these is actually a which it should be a little bit darker than this. It's not showing on camera my lighting I have in here, which is mostly for my plants not filming. It's not really doing these guys justice, that's for sure. Yeah, that doesn't help. No, I'd say that that's worse. Is it? I can't tell. Okay, but that's gonna do it. That was just a quick rundown. Different things to keep in mind with these plants. The main thing, like I said, is light and water. They do need some humidity, so the spray bottles are nifty or humidity trays. There's a lot you can do with them. The main thing is don't fertilize them during the winter time and don't let them dry out for very long either. Okay, that was fun. I hope everybody's doing well. Don't forget to leave the video a thumbs up. It helps a ton, helps the channel, helps the videos. It means a lot to me, so thank you so, so, so much for that. And subscribe as well. I upload multiple times a week, so hit that notification bell. That way you know when new videos come out. I have my social media link down below in the description of the video. It's just the same as it is here on Instagram, Tropical Plant Party. So follow me and I'll follow you back. I have a blast seeing everybody's pictures and what everybody has going on with their plants and in their gardens and just talking to everybody. It's a good time. And comment down below. Let me know some of your experiences with these guys. I have seen these potted up indoors in certain places around like six to, I'd say, ten feet tall, and they look so cool. These really are not representative of how they look when they're big. I've said that before. I'm keeping my eyes open. Maybe someday I'll get one that's a little bit bigger. Yeah, like I was saying, let me know some of what you guys got going on with your Norfolk Island pines. Some of your experiences. Have they done for you? These, like I said, tend to be kind of a toss-away plant. A lot of the times we're giving people as a gift, and then they have them for a few months, and then they die, and then it just goes into the garbage, which is sad and unfortunate. But they propagate from seed fairly easily, so I guess it's not the end of the world. It's just a little bit wasteful, but it just happens sometimes. And sometimes things like that can be an experience that leads people into buying more plants and learning about them and trying again. And that's always a good thing. All right. I have a ton of glitter to clean up. I hope everybody's doing well. And as always, everybody, and most importantly, keep on growing. Bye-bye.