When colorful annuals make their way into the garden centers, the normal spring foliage house plants will hit the garden centers too and they are ready to start fighting indoor air pollution!

In most garden centers you’ll find a regular “mix” of plants filling out many of the spring houseplant assortments. One of these plants is the Schefflera arboricola also known as the dwarf schefflera, dwarf scheff, arb’s and dwarf umbrella tree.

The Schefflera is the “dwarf” brother to the old time umbrella plant – Schefflera actinophylla. Today, you find one variety of the large Schefflera grown called ‘Amate” however the “Dwarf Umbrella” has quite a few varieties and is easy to find in almost any garden center or nursery.

Here’s a couple of the varieties commonly found today:

• Arboricola – regular green variety
• Renate Green variety that has more ripple to the leaves
• ‘Gold Capella’ variegated yellow or gold and green leaves
• ‘Trinette’ variegated cream and green leaves
• ‘Dazzle’ variegated some leaves almost completely creamy white

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There are others currently being introduced and tested. I’m sure we’ll see many new varieties of arboricola introduced over the next 5 years.