Schefflera arboricola 'Variegata'
The size of the plant and of its bag can vary a little from the photograph — each one grows at its own pace. We keep them as consistent as we can.
Overview
The cheflera carries its leaves in a fan, like small five- to nine-fingered umbrellas, and in this selection they come painted cream over green. It is one of the most forgiving plants we grow: it takes shade, it takes dry soil, and it answers well to shears, so it can be kept as a compact shrub or run as a hedge. Left alone, its stems stretch to six meters and sometimes climb to live up in the branches of another tree.
Culture
Plant it in shade or part shade, where the foliage looks its best, 1 to 2 meters apart. It tolerates the soil drying out, which makes it useful in the corners where other things struggle. Trim it whenever you like: every cut makes it denser. It reaches size in two or three years and lives twenty or thirty; in humid lowland conditions (zones 10 to 12) it asks for nothing more.
Edible Uses
Not eaten. This is a foliage plant, grown for the leaf. Worth knowing, because the leaf contains calcium oxalate crystals: chewing it irritates and inflames the mouth, tongue and lips, and brings on drooling and vomiting, in people as much as in dogs and cats. Nothing serious if it is spat out, but not a plant to leave within reach of a small child or an animal that bites everything.
Medicinal
No information yet for this section.
Agroforestry
In the catalog for its beauty, not for a role in an agroforestry system.