Fatsia Japonica Care and What Went Wrong

What are you doing? Can I help you? Go ahead, go swim. Have fun. Weirdo. What's up, Gardener friends? Jeff here. How's everybody doing? I hope you're doing well. I'm great. Ah, we have a problem. You win some, you lose some. My fatsia. Fatsia japonica. Look what happened. Well, here's what happened. I had it over here by the wall where there was irrigation. It was right here. It was being watered. It was doing great. And then I went out of town for a week and came home and it was looking pretty bad. The sprinklers turned off while I was gone. Of all the times for the sprinklers. Like, I'm not going to work anymore. It was while I was out of town. It was like 100 degrees outside. Well, that went on for a few weeks. I didn't realize that that had happened. The sprinklers turned off while I was gone. It wasn't until like two weeks after that. It was about three weeks without getting very much water. Not much water. And it was quite warm outside. So now we just have, you know, this that sits under the shade of a tree. So it wasn't getting much moisture. Yeah, I don't know, let's go see what's salvageable in here. These aren't exactly rare or hard to come by plants, but I've had it for a long time. So I have an attachment to it. Would like to be able to keep it growing. At least be able to get some suckers off of it. You found a ball? That didn't hold up very well, Turbo. You need to be a little more gentle with your balls. All right, here you go. Boom, go get your toy. Where are my clippers? Where are my clippers? Go on, go get your ball, have fun. Hey, Turbo. Here we go. Got my clippers. Next, the bowl of dried carrot skins. Like, Juan didn't want to eat his food today. That was kind of weird. Well, he ate most of it. He just wasn't into his carrots. All right. So, a little background, if you don't know. This is a Fatsia. Fatsia japonica. Japonica, guys. God, these mosquitoes are horrible. These are awesome plants. I love the Fatsias. You can see, you know, great big leaves. And these are little. Okay, Fatsias, these leaves will get really big. They're really glossy. And these are pretty dang cold hardy, too. I'm in zone 6B, so I can't grow these outside. Well, I can, but there's a, there's a twist to that. So they will grow here, but they die back to the ground and they come back every year and they only get like, I don't know, Maybe a couple of feet tall at the max when they come back and they still need to be mulched. You're not guaranteed they're going to come back. So I just keep them in a container. Downside to that is these grow much, much, much, much more slowly in a container. If you can get these in the ground. You'll get much better growth out of them, much faster growth too, if you have a nicer shape and everything. If you have a very large container, that can make a difference. I probably should have started this plant out in a very large pot, but I didn't. So here we are, and it looks like it does have multiple stems on it at this point. I originally planted this, you know, a very long time ago. There were just a couple stems. They multiply, they sucker out from the base some. Usually a large pot, very organically rich, get some compost into their mix. Don't let them dry out for very long. Once they're established, they can take some drought in a container. Keep those containers moist unless it's cool outside, in which case go ahead and let them dry more. Oh, don't do what I just did. That was bad. That was bad. I'll show you what I did. I thought that this crown right here, I thought that that was no good. I was pulling brown leaves off and then I bent it and I put a little kink down here. So whatever was left on here, yeah, shoot, might not be that viable anymore. I don't know. We will see. I'm just going to gently get these brown pieces off. Using a pair of snips would be better. I don't really want to pull on growth that's this delicate. I'm not going to pull too hard. It doesn't want to come off, so I'm going to leave that. Now, moving on to this growth up here. That's done. That's done. I'm not going to get anything out of that. The fatcias. These guys are ones that have a monopodial growth to them. You see that? So everything comes out of one central point right there. Not exactly in the center of the frame but you know what I'm talking about right? It's this guy right here. I'm gonna give this a cut see if there's any green in there. There is some. I probably could cut that a little bit higher sorry. Now you can see it sort of getting darkish out. Let's see if we can get in there so you can see that piece of stem. Looks like there might be some hollowing in there. That's not good. Want to cut down below that hollow point for sure. Want something nice and solid in there. There's a stub right here. See that little nub that doesn't want to focus for some reason? Don't know what it wants to focus on. There we go. That guy. That nub? That's going to be its new growth point. It's always a shame to have these guys have any death. That's their growth point, because that means that's it for that stem. It'll put out offshoots, which you can root. You can cut them off and root them. I don't know if the juice is worth the squeeze with that, but it is an option. These guys sucker so freely. I'm going to show you. I'm trying to clear out some of the brown from the base of the plant here. You can see all the little babies that are growing in here. So, you know, all is not lost. I have lots more in here and I could separate these out very easily. It's not too complicated to get in there and use a spade, pull them from their containers. It can take a while though. Their roots are pretty tough, so something when you go into doing that kind of project, you need to be prepared. I have normally had to remove all soil, give the root balls a soak to try and loosen things up, but it's doable and they tend to recover really well from having it done, so it's an option. But I do still have some in here that still have their central growth points, like this guy right here. I'm not seeing any signs of rot or anything like that, so that's good. I'm not really Concerned about needing to treat this with say like a fungicide of any kind. That cut that I made right there, I could maybe hit that with something. I don't really think I need to. I think that'd be overkill. So now what I need to do, now that I've cleaned this plant up, is I really just need to make certain that this plant is staying very, very, very well hydrated and getting a good day's sun. Where it was sitting, it was getting too much shade. So, I don't know. Now that it's into more sun, that's going to help kind of waken those central spots. I'm sorry. This is very distracting. Here, you want me to throw the ball? Well, don't drop it. Give it to me. You can make me go get it. All right. All right. Here you go, Terps. Go get your ball. There you go. Have fun. Do your swims. Yeah, so usually when I do a video, I want to talk about, you know, how awesome a plant is and all those things, which I think I've done. These are pretty sturdy. They're hardy. They can take a lot of cold. They make a really good house plant too. They're spider mite prone. So that's something to remember. A plant like this to get spider mites though, these big leaves, you can just take a damp rag and get in there and wipe them off with an insecticidal soap. It's a lot easier than say it's like a palm tree where you have all those fricking pennies that you got to clean between. Now these are at least easier to get the pests off of, so they are pest prone. They're adaptable to a wide range of conditions when it comes to their light. You can grow them in less light or a bright, intense light. You want to acclimate them to that. And if you live in a climate that's really dry, arid, that has low humidity, then more shade is probably better for them. And these just look beautiful up in places like the Pacific Northwest. I know in Seattle, these are gorgeous plants, really thick, big, beautiful leaves. Thank you, Steve. My hotter climate here and being in a container. And I get this more raggedy appearance. This one's only a few feet tall. This should be six feet tall by now. So I'm thinking that this needs a total overhaul. New pot, new soil, lots of organic material. It's been a few years since it's been in this container. So repotting, it's only going to help the plant. It's doing some recovering right now, though. So I need to wait, keep this well hydrated, and wait until I see some movement out of this growth point right here. Just want to see that swell back up and get nice and solid. If it doesn't do that within the next probably four to six weeks, then I'll say forget it and just cut those bits back and try and just start everything over from down below. Hey, these things happen, right? Hopefully you learned something from my poor performance with this plant, my poor care. They're typically just one of those plants where I don't have to do much with them. I've never really had any issues with my fatsias before, other than the occasional pests and winter damage sometimes. I'll leave these out into the cold until it's like, I don't know, 15 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit, and that's when I like to move them into the greenhouse or into the house or whatever, just to get them away from the cold. I don't know, they're pretty low mess, low fuss, I should say. They are a little mess. They're not a very messy plant. I can't. These things happen. It just got away from me. Oops. But, you know, it's all right. We did what we needed to do here, right? Talked about it with everybody. That's why I said we. This is a group activity here. What do you have to add about the Fatsia experiences you've had with your plants where you're like, oh. I didn't realize that this was going to look bad, and now it just looks like an abomination. A very poor reflection to how I want people to know that I'm growing my plants. You know, I try to take care of everything, but, you know. Slipped through the cracks. It's got those shiny green leaves. I just thought, yeah, it's fine. It's always fine. But it wasn't this time. Fertilize, fertilize, fertilize. Optimal lighting, optimal humidity, optimal watering. That's what you got to do. And you got to stay on top of it. It's best to always be consistent with fertilizer too. So, you know, all purpose is usually fine with these. I do tend to dilute the fertilizers. I usually do about a quarter strength about once a week when I'm trying to get a plant to recover from something. I don't want to do a monthly. I'm going to do it weekly at a lower dose. So it has that consistency and that frequency. As you can see, Whatever you got to do to help get those weak growth points that are all shriveled up like this one up here, get that to swell back out and start pushing something out of there. And we're good. Once I see some movement in there, we're good. I'll go ahead and repot it. Yeah, like I said, what do you have to add? Surprises that your plant's been thrown at you? I'm sure you got some. Are you growing the fatsias, the japonicas? They're great. I just love them for all the reasons I just said. You know, I've grown this plant for a very long time. This is the first time I've had an issue. And it was because of extreme heat and drought. So this really isn't that bad considering, right? Just shows how sturdy the plant is. I can keep it in the sun. I can keep it in the shade. After noon shade during the heat of the summer. But for the most part, you know, moderate lighting, moderate watering. That's it. We need to be well-drained and everything, all that basic houseplant stuff, but yeah. Fun plant, lots of fun ones to choose from. This is just your plain old Fatsia japonica, your plain old Fatsia. The most common one you can get, Japanese Aralia. So pretty. I love the gloss. Such a nice-looking plant, as long as you're zoomed in on that nice-looking leaf. Not the rest of it. The rest of it's a mess. All right, hey, hope everybody's doing well. Having a great day, a great night, and everything's just going absolutely beautifully for you. And of course, as always, and most importantly, everybody, here we go. Do your thing. Yeah, what, what's the, what am I saying next? Where was I? Oh yeah, keep on growing. Bye, bye.