Cultivating Coffea Arabica at home

Grow Coffea arabica as a houseplant

Grow coffee. Not with the purpose to drink it, but as an ornamental plant.
Not everyone, in fact, know that coffee, or Coffea arabica, is a beautiful plant that grows well in Italy, in mild temperatures and that can be maintained properly even inside the house.

Cultivating Coffea Arabica

Get to produce coffee at home is at least inconvenient; however enjoy the presence of Coffea Arabica as decorative indoor plant, it is absolutely simple and it is also original.
It is a plant of African origin in nature, as a shrub, it can reach up to 8 meters in height, but in the apartment rarely exceeds 2 meters.

It has a dark green foliage, bright, composed of oval leaves that give the plant a rounded crown and slightly hairy.
The flowering of the coffee appears in late spring and early summer; the flowers are white star-shaped with a pleasant scent.
In our area they appear in March. The fruit contains two green seeds that after roasting take on the classic coffee color. The flower, white and very fragrant, is star-shaped, while the fruit is a drupe and with the maturation turns from green to a bright red that makes Coffea arabica like a Christmas tree.

Inside the fruit there are two seeds; appropriately treated become precious coffee. Each fruit contains two seeds.

Growing in pots

Coffea arabica is a type of plant that you can safely keep and grow in pots, at home; during the winter it is good to put it in a rather light place, preferably with light filtered by a curtain, which makes the atmosphere more cheerful, thanks to its red and full-bodied fruit.

During the summer, however, this plant prefers a shady spot, protected from the heat; temperatures above 30-32 degrees, in fact, are harmful to the Coffea arabica, especially in the absence of the right amount of moisture.

Location, watering and soil suitable for Coffea arabica

With regard to the placement of the plant and its maintenance it is necessary to keep in mind, as already said, that the coffee is of tropical origin.

In this sense, therefore, it is necessary to think of a frequent watering, preferably by vaporization.
Vaporization allows the plant to keep hydrated without incurring in standing water that Coffea plant just does not digest!

The process of watering is to be carried out on a daily basis, more intense in the summer.

As it regards the placement is necessary to keep the plant at a temperature always quite high, usually above 18°C.
Better if the selected location is ventilated, to avoid stagnation that favor root rot. In summer the plant can also be safely in the open-air, as it is not directly exposed to sunlight.

On the ground are needed particularly draining solutions, prone to acidity and a pH between 5 and 6. Repotting should be done to rule on an annual basis.
In general, it is better to resort to a container with a diameter of about 2 cm higher than the previous.

Fertilization is scheduled monthly for younger plants, and it needs to become more frequent as the size of the plant grows.

How to grow Coffea arabica

The care of the foliage of the Coffea Arabica is a fundamental process for the beauty of the plant. It is very important that the specimen is properly pruned; This is to increase the chances of flowering, both for greater longevity.
Usually, we proceed before the vegetative growth or immediately after fruiting, taking care to use very sharp shears that involve cuts with an angle of about 45 degrees.

This relative ease of maintenance has made the Coffea Arabica one of the most cultivated plants in the world, which is naturalized in many places too far away from the original.

The coffee plant is also quite easy to multiply.
To do this, you need to embed it at the beginning of summer, putting a sprig properly selected, in a portion of clean river sand and peat, to be placed under a layer of plastic wrap, so keep indoor humidity.

The sprig select should be about 15 cm and with at least one gem.
If you want to try to sow, you can sow the plant always in peat and sand in portions, but keeping the pot in a shady and hot area.
The greatest risks for the coffee plant are temperature changes, which create yellowing and fall of beautiful foliage.