Tradescantia Hub
If you search online for information about variegated plants, you’ll find plenty of blog posts offering to explain how variegation works and describing two or three different types. I’ve read lots of those posts, both when I was first learning, and more recently when I’ve wanted to explain things to other people. But they’ve never […]
An FAQ about plant growth regulators (PGRs), covering how and why they are used, and what effects they have on plants.
Growing tropical tradescantia seeds can be difficult and laborious. But if you’re lucky, you could end up making a brand new and beautiful plant.
Plant seller Horti recently added an AI “plant doctor” to their website. Within hours of testing, it was offering potentially fatal advice.
Thrips are a common problem for Commelianceae houseplants. Learn some tips for spotting the earliest signs, and how to choose a treatment to tackle them.
Tradescantias are semi-succulents, which means they’re much more tolerant of drought than a lot of plants. It also means that they’re a lot less obvious about it when they eventually do get thirsty. Growing tradescantias as houseplants is very different from having “drama queens” like coleus, nerve plants, and polka dot plants.
Sometimes this plant is labelled as Tradescantia × andersoniana ‘Blushing Bride’, and sometimes it’s labelled as Tradescantia fluminensis ‘Maiden’s Blush’. But these names actually refer to two completely different cultivars!
Some people have suggested the plant has symptoms of a viral infection. Some have even gone as far as to claim that the plant should be quarantined or banned from sale for fear that it’s contagious. Others have grown the plant for years and report no evidence of the symptoms spreading to nearby plants.
This is a topic that causes a lot of confusion, so I wrote this summary on correct and incorrect names in Commelinaceae!
If you’ve been interested in houseplants for more than a year or two, you probably already know the original “Pink Congo” story. A few years ago, a new plant called Philodendron “Pink Congo” came onto the scene. Its lower leaves are dark green, but the new leaves at the top are bright pink. It quickly became a wild hit among tropical plant enthusiasts and prices skyrocketed.