Plants in Progress
I always get so excited when I see my plant’s progress; whether it’s a simple plant growth or a successful propagation rooting.
I love coming back home from trips and noticing how much my plants have changed! Some have visibly grown, others may have bloomed, propagations may have rooted and new offsets are shooting out! This is the most exciting progress because it is visibly apparent after so many days of being away.
At times, I don’t even realize how much a plant has grown until I see a picture of it on Instagram from a few weeks back!
I wanted to write an article about growing plants to showcase 11 plants of mine who have significantly grown in the last few weeks. This way, I can share with you which ones are the easiest and fastest to grow and propagate!
1) Pilea Peperomioides, (Chinese Money Plant)
My Pilea is the easiest plant to care for and to propagate. It requires a lot of indirect light so it definitely loves our North facing window. It grows really fast and produces offsets, (pups) very often.
I bought this plant 6 months ago and it gave me 10 pups so far. I simply take the plant out of its pot and cut off the offsets as close to the mother plant as possible so that they come with little roots. I place the offsets with the most developed roots directly into a pot with dirt and the rest into a water propagating jar.
December 2018
This is my original Pilea. I keep it next to this North facing window and water it once a week.
June 2019
Mother Pilea 5 months later. Not only it has significantly grown, it also gave me 10 offsets.
February 2019
This was the first offset I cut off the mother plant and planted directly into this blue pot with dirt.
June 2019
4 months later this offset is definitely ready for a new pot. Offsets require more water than the mother plant as they are still developing roots. I water my newly planted offsets at least twice a week.
2) Peperomia rotundifolia, (Trailing Jade)
My Peperomia definitely likes a lot of indirect sunlight. It requires water once every two weeks in our climate. While its branches grew significantly, the fullness of the plant has remained the same. I think I am going to give those long branches a trim to see if the rest of the plants becomes fuller.
I’ve propagated this plant with leaves. I found two leaves detached from the plant and placed them in a water propagating jar and I have obtained roots quite quickly!
March 2019
The original plant in the right top corner.
June 2019
Mother plant has significantly extended its arms in length.
June 11, 2019
This leaf had no roots when I first placed it into the propagating jar. After a month it grew roots and two little leaves.
June 18, 2019
A week later, the roots are bigger and more leaves have developed.
3) Zamioculcas, (ZZ Plant)
I have had this plant for 12 years and it was in an 8″ pot when I first bought it. I had to repot it at least 3 times. It is a very easy plant to grow. It requires very little sun light and watering every two weeks. Even though this plant thrives in low lighting conditions, I keep mine in a South facing room with no direct sunlight. It grew really big in 12 years!!
December 2018
My ZZ plant went through a rough 6 months when we took home our puppy…He loved to chew its branches so I had to move it and it didn’t like its new location. I eventually brought it back to this room and placed it on a stand to keep it away from puppy.
December 2018
Within a couple of months of being back to its original spot, this plant started shooting several new branches!
April 2019
And voila’! A new stand and a new pot for my ZZ Plant in its full beauty!!
4) Sansevieria cylindrica, (Cylindrical Snake PLant)
These plants are extremely easy to care for; they thrive in all lighting conditions, including very low light and require little watering. They don’t grow as fast as other plants but they do produce quite many offsets that can either be left in place to fill-in the plant or cut off to propagate.
April 2019
June 2019
The growth of this plant two months later has not been extreme but I can definitely notice a difference.
May 2019
I cut three offsets the same way I cut the Pilea’s offsets, by taking the plant off its pot and cutting the offset as close as possible to the mother plant.
I planted one directly into a pot with dirt and I placed the other two in water propagating jars. I haven’t noticed a growth difference between the ones in water and the ones in dirt and I can say that none of these offsets have significantly grown.
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5) Schlumbergera, (Christmas cactus)
This Christmas Cactus has given me a lot of satisfaction in the past few months. I have to say this is not the easiest plant to care for but it sure is beautiful when it blooms. This plant was in full bloom when I bought it at Christmas, then it lost all its flowers and even blooms. I moved it closer to a north facing window and water it very lightly once a week. After 4 months it bloomed again and its flowers were gorgeous!
April 2019
Christmas Cactus in its glorious second bloom in 4 months.
June 2019
Two months later and the flowers have been replaced by lots of new leaves, (tiny bright green leaves).
6) Echeveria Succulent
In the last few months I learned which succulents are hardy and easy to care for and which ones are tougher to deal with…My motto is to buy the greenest succulents I can find. If I get lured by the many beautiful tones of pink, purple and silver, I find myself struggling with the plant.
However, I did learn that it is relatively easy and very fascinating to propagate succulents, in particular Echeverias. All you need is healthy leaves removed from the plant’s stem. Differently from when they are plants, propagating succulent petals require more water to be able to grow roots. I lightly water the soil of my petals twice a week.
June 14, 2019
I had a struggling Echeveria, so I kept the healthy leaves and simply placed them on the soil of the original plant pot.
June 18, 2019
You can see how fast the roots grow in only 4 days! And now the other leaves are growing roots too!
June 11, 2019
In the beginning I only had one leaf with tiny petals and roots.
June 18, 2019
After a week I started noticing developing roots on the other leaves as well.
7) Euphorbia Tirucalli, (Pencil Cactus)
I love this plant! It’s so funky!! It loves lots of sun, including some direct sunlight and little water. I water mine once every two weeks. It grows fast and propagate surprisingly easy.
May 2019
The original mother plant growing a sturdy light and bright green stem at the left base of the plant.
June 2019
After a month, that stem reached full height and developed lots of little bright green pencils!!
June 9, 2019
I had to cut off this piece of a branch as it was broken and all dried up. I placed it in water and after a week it was all plumped up. After a month it grew roots!
June 18, 2019
Once the roots started growing, they were growing very fast! Look at the difference in 9 days!! And notice how it even grew an extra pencil!!
8) Maranta Leuconeura, (Prayer Plant)
This plant has the most beautiful leaves in our house. They can be hypnotic under a certain light! This plant thrives in a moderate amount of light and drinks water once a week. It gives me the most beautiful little, pale purple flowers!
Its leaves move up and down throughout the day. They go up with low light levels and go down during the day. So cool!
March 2019
When I bought this plant back in March, it literally only had 6 leaves.
May 2019
A couple of months later it had doubled its amount of leaves and it’s not stopping. I am ready to re-pot it!
9) Oxalis Triangularis Purple, (Purple Shamrocks)
I am glad I finally decided to get this plant! I’ve never really considered shamrocks as attractive indoor plants but now that I have this purple variation, I totally love it!
I bought it at a garage sale in a plastic pot for $2.00! I took it home and re-potted it in this green painted concrete pot as I thought the green and purple were perfect together.
April 2019.
The original plant the day I re-potted it!
June 2019.
Two months later and it grew so thick and beautiful and it even gave me these dainty little flowers! I can barely see the pot now!
10) Senecio Radicans, (Strings of Bananas)
I bought this String of Bananas for my daughter’s room as I thought it would have been the perfect pair with her Strings or Pearls but there is such a difference between these two plants! They are both succulents and require bright light and little water but the Strings of Bananas is much easier to care for than the Strings of Pearls; it grows much faster and with little trouble.
April 2019
These Strings of Bananas were perfect for this playful pot! It totally looks like a bad hair day!
June 2019
Fast forward two months and these strings are out of control! It looks like this pot needs a serious hair cut!
11) Tradescantia Zebrina, (Wondering Jew)
Like for the Oxalis, I never knew much about this plant, nor I was really interested in it, until I bought three little pots to make a Closed Terrarium, (I ended up making two and using this plant in both). Apparently these plants thrive in many different environments and grow extremely fast, both with low and high light levels, humid and dried environments.
May 2019
I separated the two plants that came with each pot as I only need one tiny plant for each of my Closed Terrariums, so I was left with several little plants that I re-potted together into this textured white ceramic pot.
June 2019
A month later the plant has significantly grown. I love the deep purple stripes of the young leaves! This plant would look great combined with the Oxalis! In-fact, once they both grow a bit more, I am going to separate a few branches of both and plant them in matching pots next to each other for a great deep purple, green and silver composition!
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