How to Grow Umbrella Plant
Umbrella plant or Cyperus alternifolius is a large plant with interesting leaves and tiny flowers, and it grows in zones 7, 8, 9, 10 and even into zone 11. Umbrella plants like water, but do surprisingly well in Texas with watering in the summer.
This is not a schefflera variety, although there is a schefflera sometimes called an umbrella plant that grows indoors. Cyperus is also called umbrella palm.
The umbrella plant could grow in a large office, maybe, but it gets about six feet tall and develops some new growth every year. This is a perennial that requires a large growing area, since the leaves extend like a canopy over a much larger area than the roots.
- Difficulty:
- Moderately Easy
Instructions
Things You'll Need
- An umbrella plant
- A very large area for planting
- shovel or spade
- water
- pruning shears
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1
Locate Cyperus alternifolius plants for your yard or landscape.
Find a local nursery with the umbrella plant available, or a plant nursery that will order it for you.
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2
Find a good area for planting in your landscape.
Locate an area that needs a tall and bushy plant. The umbrella plant will do well near a fence or in back of other smaller plants, and provides some shade in the summer for low growth under it.
The umbrella plant seems to do well in the sun in Texas, when many flowering plants do not.
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3
umbrella plant in summer
Plant the roots to previous soil level.
Dig a hole with the shovel and place the umbrella plant roots so the soil level is about where it was previously. Often, the tall leaves of these plants are damaged or bent in half, and if that is the case, cut the leaves just above the soil level.
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4
Take care of the umbrella plant.
Water the roots regularly, since this flowering plant likes moisture. Fertilize during the summer months. Watch for green shoots in the spring. These shoots will have tips that push out that are the outer edges of the leaves of the "umbrella" when fully formed. Sometimes in spring they freeze on the tips and show a little brown that can be trimmed.
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5
umbrella plants use more area than the roots
Cut back after a freeze after the plant has turned brown.
Cut the dead stalks back to soil level or just above after a freeze, so that the new shoots can start peeking out early. We cut these in January in Texas, since we sometimes have new growth in February. Do not leave the dead stalks, as the new growth will be delayed and the plant will not be attractive in the landscape.
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1
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copyright 2010 Linda Richard
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