Plant Propagation: An Update

Over a year ago I posted about some plants I was attempting to propagate. I recently realized it would probably be nice to update all of you on the plants, and how successful (or not) the experiment has been.

Firstly, I didn’t realize it’s been over a year since I propagated them. Otherwise I would have updated in July when it was only a year since I began the experiment.

The Devil’s Ivy:

This was the plant that I liked the color of, but didn’t know what it was exactly. After a couple of months, I looked it up and found out it’s Devil’s Ivy, a common houseplant but not safe if you have pets that like to chew on plants.

I feel this plant is by far the most successful of the group. I eventually broke it into two, one for home and one for my classroom. However, I’m on leave this year so they both are at home with me. One got left outside on the porch (because we have one now!) a little too long and got sunburned.  It’s still alive though, and when I did my repotting it got a new pot, and is currently living in the spare room (which I call my office in my head). It’s not as sunny in there and should give this plant a chance to revive itself.

The other is on top of our bookshelf in the living room. It’s a good spot, I think, because it’s out of the reach of children and husbands. Plus, it’s vines are starting to grow really well, and I think it will look nice when they get long enough to drape down the shelf a bit.

The Baby Jade:

This one barely survived the classroom last year. I realized that a child was picking on this one. Literally. I never caught the child in the act, but after class I would find the leaves with little crescent fingernail marks on it. I decided to rescue it and take it home.

Once home it recovered and in the past few months, since we moved, it has really thrived. I realized that it perhaps wasn’t propagating like the mother plant because it was in such a small container. 

When I repotted it, I gave it a larger pot, and buried it a little deeper, in the hopes that it would become more stable. It was so tall in the small pot that it started to lean and I was worried it would break in half and I would no longer have a Baby Jade.

The Succulents:

The succulents unfortunately did not survive the classroom. They were the same as the Baby Jade, I kept finding them with fingernail marks on the leaves. For whatever reason they never really took root either.

 The Spider Plants:

These did really well too. Until we moved. When we moved I decided that these could live outside, since most Spider Plants I’ve seen do well outside in partial sun. Our porch only gets afternoon sun, so it seemed like they would be ok.

And they were. Sort of. It looks like they’ve been picked on by birds or bugs or something. I’m not sure.

Being honest here, these poor plants got pretty neglected being outside this summer. So that’s probably why. It was a long, super-hot summer and those plants needed to be watered more than they got over the summer. They would have done better if they had been watered better, I think.

Anyway. I repotted them when I repotted everything else.  I also cleared off some items from the porch so the plants are more prominent and I won’t forget to water them as much because they aren’t hidden. They already are recovering beautifully,

A New One- Pink Bromeliad:

I made John get me this pink bromeliad about a month ago. Maybe more.

It started to die, unfortunately. And after some research I discovered that it’s putting out pups, so the mother plant starts to die. With the re-potting I did, I got this one a new pot. I pulled off some pups and threw them away. One got saved though and put in it’s own pot. The mother plant is in a new pot with new soil as well.

I was told that bromeliads are easy care so hopefully at least the mother plant survives. Because John said if I kill it, we aren’t allowed to have pets or children.