Reptile & Amphibian Forums

With some experience with ficus trees and sheffleras and after asking a couple greenhouses owners I have ended up in the conclusion that these two species need fresh circulating air in order to thrive(you can prove me wrong)otherwise most of their leaves fall after a while.Both those gyes stated that they are both outdoor plants.Why do we still suggest these for our chameleons?Aren't there other plants that keep their foliage within doors?
I really want to make sense out of this topic...

You can use pothos, umbrella tree, rubber plant, and hibiscus.

I allready use pothos,is fine but I need something tall and 'durable that can provide structural support for the cham and also dense to show cover,umbrella plants behave like ficus

"Both those gyes stated that they are both outdoor plants."
I'm pretty sure you'll find that ALL plants we use for chameleon enclosures are outdoor plants.
There are two reasons for this:
1) Most of the world's plant species existed [outdoors] long before we humans ever turned up to build houses to keep them in, and
2) in the wild, chameleons live outdoors - in trees, mostly - and hence in captivity we try to replicate a natural environment as best as possible.

I don't think it is reasonable to expect any plant to thrive for a long duration in a chameleon enclosure, or anywhere indoors for that matter. Sure, there are plants that do quite well indoors (like Pothos - my office in the city with no opening windows is a testament to that), but in the right conditions (like their natural environment) they do even better outdoors.

So the key to keeping these 'outdoor' plants successfully is to rotate them between your cage and outdoors. A good period outdoors will allow them to recover enough to be placed back in the cage after a while. Most keepers will recommend that you have spare plants in case anything happens to the ones in your cage (plant diseases can strike suddenly), and these are the plants you will rotate with the ones in your cage.

Also, I find many similarities between keeping plants in a chameleon cage, and the art of Bonsai. The basic principle of both is to keep healthy plants within a confined shape/space. I think you'd do well to get a book on Bonsai to learn some of the techniques used to keep trees in confined spaces. Plus, the shaping techniques will also help to create the structure that you want to provide for your chameleon.
As an interesting side note, although it is recommended that most bonsai species be kept outdoors, Ficus is one of the species that is often suggested as an indoor species.

Thanks for your post,it was what I was thinking too but I wanted to hear it from other people just to make sure.So rotating will be..
I believe you should have atleast 3 trees if you are going to have rich foliage always.How often do you rotate them?
The strange thing is that people rarely tell that they are rotating their plants.I don't know why..

I keep ficus in my cages year round with no problems.
There are a few factors that ficus need to be happy,
light, temp, and water, light being the biggest. Almost every ficus tree I've ever bought goes through a "shedding" phase
when you first put it in the cage, they are in shock
from changing environments (the nursery you bought it from
probably got the plants from florida, or some other bright
sunny locale.) They need time to adjust to the lower light conditions. If you supply enough bright light, they will bounce back eventually, if not, dry up and die. If you're consistantly
having plants dry up and loose all of their leaves, you need to increase the light intensity. I've found the mv bulbs
do a good job at making them happy, once acclimated I use
a 48" double bulb fluorecent hood. You can also rotate them out,
but that's not very convienient when it's 20 degres outside
garrett

also try using different variants of ficus like
"ali" or "amstel king" They're designer ficus that are supposed
to be more tolerant of low light (so they say.)
I like them better than benjamina, more exotic looking-
gw

I have a mv that I could try out,it will replace the basking light and the one flouresence buld,the uv flouresence bulb is the only one to stay,how about this?

Despite what I said about being able to grow plants successfully in a chameleon enclosure, I still believe that the primary concern should always be the chameleon.

The plants are secondary.
It's not the worst thing in the world to have to buy new plants every now and then (I think having a stock of plants to rotate would be better).

So what I'm saying is that you shouldn't fiddle around unnecessarily with your lighting/heat setup if the cham is doing well. There's nothing wrong with supplementing the lighting though, provided it doesn't interfere with the cham's well-being.

The only reason I add this is because I've heard it mentioned that MV bulbs can be a bit too intense for some enclosures. Just be careful of that.

However, if you do go ahead and try it, I'd love to hear about what effect it has on the plants' growth.

What you say is true but those trees are still the best plants available for other reasons. I use both of these trees and what I would suggest is to go with the Broadleaf Sheffelera or Umbrella plants (sheffelera amate) for large Chameleons and use small Ficus or Pothos with any babies or juvenile. The varigrated Sheffelera and the Ficus plants will always have a tendency to drop leaves indoors even with fresh air circulating. The braodleaf Scheffelera is the only plant that I know of that can take a lot of water and not develop root rot and it is also good at standing up to a Chams abuse. I keep a couple of extra plants to swap out if one of my Chams is a little rough on them. The Veileds have such super grips that they are really tough on the plants. With the Umbrella plants, they drop their leaves starting at the bottom first so most of the leaves are at the top after a while so chose a tree that is a good height for your cages so you will have some leaves left at the right height after a couple of months. Keeping a Chameleon is an expensive thing and you'll go thru lots of plants during your Chameleon's life. Change your plants out when you change your UVB bulbs. It doesn't help to keep the spare plants outside. Once you bring them in they'll drop their leaves. Its just one of those things where there isn't really a way to win

I can't say I agree with that statement.

A well looked-after tree should outlive a chameleon by many years.

Whilst it is true that some plants (particularly Ficus) will drop their leaves when you change their location, if you plan your relocations/repotting/pruning properly (ie. at the start of the growing season) you shouldn't have too much trouble rotating plants.

I think the main reasons trees in cham enclosures die off and have to be replaced is because most people just put them in there and pay them no further attention.
Trees need regular watering, fertilising (a tricky job in cham enclosures because you don't want to use anything that could harm your cham), pruning, re-potting.
Also thought should be put into the lighting in the cage. Heat lamps can kill off some plants, whereas others are stimulated by the heat. Placing the more heat tolerant plants under the heat-lamp, and the others in the cooler areas of the cage would help.
And UVB bulbs don't provide much useful light to plants. It can help to put in another ordinary flourescent bulb (or even ones specifically for plant growing) in conjunction with your UVB lamp.

An indoor Ficus in an office environment can live for 20 years. There are some indoor bonsai Ficus that are even older than that. But they all require maintenance and attention.

Or you can just buy another plant every time your old one dies.
Keeping chameleons is expensive.

UV bulbs are ordinary full spectrum bulbs that prolong the spectrum a bit further than violet so they behave exactly light ordinary ones when it comes to plants.I really believe that these plants cannot be grown successfully indoors even with the best husbandry.Atleast my expierience tells so and I can't say I'm not paying enough attention...
Anyway,each one with his own opinions,thanks gyes for your posts,helped a lot

You said... "UV bulbs are ordinary full spectrum bulbs that prolong the spectrum a bit further than violet so they behave exactly light ordinary ones when it comes to plants"

The spectrum of the UV bulbs is not the only problem for plants. The main problem is the intensity of the light. UV bulbs generally have low intensities of light in the visible spectrum, and this is why they fail to help plants to grow.
Also, they are more geared toward the blue spectrum and the growth of some plants is impaired due to the lack of light in the red spectrum.

I've found that ordinary compact flourescents (for normal household use) that can be bought with much higher visible light intensity, and with a warmer spectrum, seem to provide plants with more of the light they need (and they don't affect the heat/UVB gradient of the cage adversely).