i've had her for ~ 2 years now and she grew pretty good until i moved and she started "balding", i've cut the dying branches off and propagated them. i started using fertiliser at the end of summer and paused as soon as winter started and have an almost weekly watering schedule (put her in a pot with water and waited until the earth got wet and took her out afterwards). she is still growing, i just don't get why she is balding and the top leaves started drying off :/ does she need repotting? is it something else?
by kihnay
7 Comments
Because tradescantias aren’t hanging plants. What’s happening to yours is common if you try to let them get long and hang. They’re supposed to be trimmed and kept short sadly. I didn’t find this out until AFTER I got one because I had the intention of letting it hang long. That didn’t work out unfortunately
I’d prop the good part and start anew.
These guys are sensitive to light changes, they need a lot of direct light, maybe it was the light difference in the move?
That’s the cycle of owning tradescantias — in order to get the fuller look, it is a lot of chop, prop and shove back in to the pot.
Tradascantia Zebrina is sooooooo hardy, you won’t kill it unless you hit it with a flame thrower or leave it in a blizzard. Even then, it’d probably still keep going.
You can also help her remain longer by giving her other pots to “hop into”. Since these plants typically crawl along the ground, the pots act as the ground for them to get more nutrients out of
lack of natural lateral branching & die back is usually a combination of lack of Sulfur & lack of light. Recommendation is Gypsum & more sunlight.
That’s just how they look as the age. The new growth is at the ends of the vine, the old parts lose their leaves after a while