Martin Fish is enjoying the lovely leaves of tradescantias
Tradescantias are great in the home or greenhouse and are so easy
Tradescantia is an interesting group of plants from North and South America. Some are hardy, herbaceous perennials and the tender types make excellent pot plants. These come from Mexico and Brazil, where they grow as ground cover below trees and shrubs and spread to form a carpet of foliage.
Thirty or more years ago, everyone had a tradescantia, often called ‘wandering Jew’, growing as a trailing houseplant and it was one of the first plants I ever took cuttings from. I’m pleased to say that tradescantia and other foliage plants are now getting more popular, which I think’s great for anyone wanting to try pot plants that are easy to grow and propagate.
As well as growing them in the house, they also make good greenhouse plants for decoration in the summer months and if you can provide some heat over winter you can keep them growing all year round. Although a minimum winter temperature of 10C (50F) is recommended, they’ll survive lower temperatures in the greenhouse if the compost is kept nice and just moist.
The two I grow are T. fluminensis ‘Variegata’, which has a light green and white striped leaf, and T. zebrina ‘Purpusii’, with its dark purple foliage. As we go into autumn I like to take a fresh batch of cuttings to grow as houseplants and also as an insurance policy, just in case the main plant in the greenhouse dies over winter! Both types are very simple to propagate and you should get 100 per cent of the cuttings to root.
The easiest way to create a new plant is to prepare four or five short tip cuttings, trimmed below a leaf joint with the lower leaves removed. Insert the cuttings around a 9cm (3½in) pot of multi-purpose compost.
In gentle warmth and kept moist, they’ll soon root to form an attractive trailing foliage plant for winter.