Especially if they're easy going and/or have dope colours like our pal here: Tradescantia Zebrina
All this was grown from a stem that I accidentally broke and panic-planted in some soil in hope to save it. It had three leaves attached to it at that moment. A year later... I think it was a success?
Oh and a Pothos leaf makes an appearance on the right. It's from its last pruning, dunno what I'll do with it yet.
This plant is suuuper easy to propagate. Snip right above a leaf and stick it in dirt. Boom. You can also root it in water, but either way works just as well and no rooting hormone is needed. Actually we kept close watch on a stem that we put in water, and after only 11 hours we had a wee beginning of nub poking out. What is in the nursery pots were directly planted in soil from tiny cuttings. Did I say it's an easy going plant? It's an easy going plant.
Look at this beauty, pictures don't do justice to the shimmery silver stripes on the top.
Anyway, we have enough of it to think about giving cuttings to people and start decorating with it, and the latter is just what I'm about to document here.
The idea was my husband's, backed with enthusiasm by yours truly. We were at a garden center with the intention of just visiting around and have lunch at the bistro upstairs, but being surrounded with so many pretty things was too inspiring.
The man has been into lanterns since the game Amnesia: Dark Descent came out I think. If the idea of hiding in a dark corner hoping unkillable monstrocities don't find you and rip you apart doesn't warm your heart, I don't know what will.
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| We almost came back with a swirly grey and brownish pot, but decided to go with glossy black. To make the plant the star of the show. |
Since our gal Zebrina likes a lot of light, we wanted to have some contraption where we could put a grow light right above it and have fun watching it grown in a pretty setting. Well, prettier than the herb light it's in right now. Which was meant to grow cooking herbs. And now I don't have herbs. Only Tradescantia. Oh well.
So the top came off with a hack saw and the bulb socket (?) was glued in with some... glue-putty-thing? (English as a second language, have pity) Next will be a couple coats of black spray. As fun as said-putty is fun to poke, it's a bit unsightly. I won't show a picture of that step, let's just skip to the fun part: propagating!
From that stock we managed to also fill in a pot with what was rooting in water. Fingers crossed, if this goes well, Mother-in-law will have a shiny new plants in a few weeks!
After choosing healthy-looking tips from the big mama plant and leaving a proper lenght of stem on it, we crowded the pot, on top of normal potting soil with slow-release fertilizer in it. We then gave it a good sip of water.
Note that the pot has a drainage hole at the bottom. Unless it's terracotta or some other porous material, I think a pot should always have a drainage hole. You don't ever want the roots to be sitting in soggy mud. That's the #1 house plant killer.
That's also when we noticed that we probably should prune mama plant more often, as it's kinda leggy. But oh well, we love her anyway, she's happily trailing over the whOLE DAMNED WORLD and takING OVER OUR PITIFUL MORTAL HUMAN RACE. Happy plant, happy house, immaright?
This is the beginning of something cool. The light bulb is rrrreally bright. Really bright. I think plants around it might get a growth boost, so that's neat. It kinda kills the picture, but be assured, it's more colourful in real life.
Also, seen on the left is some bits that didn't make the cut (OOOoooh word play) for our project but we didn't want to just throw it away, so we replanted it. Let's see where it leads, and let's think of someone to give it to when it inevitably grows to take up every square meter of the house.
I could wait a few weeks and post what it looks like then, but I think I'd rather hit "Publish" now and give an update picture in a new post, when progress shows.
So this is the conclusion for now. A sweet, life-loving Tradescantia Zebrina in a good looking new home.
:)
P.S. Pothos seems happy as well, we planted it at the same time as the rest and it's already pushing out a new leaf! We're doing something right! My heart is full of rainbows.
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