I have this gorgeous Silver Inch Plant which loves the sun and grows like mad but the it’s branches shrivel and the leaves go brown and crispy. How can I help it?
by Travelling_Frenchie
I have this gorgeous Silver Inch Plant which loves the sun and grows like mad but the it’s branches shrivel and the leaves go brown and crispy. How can I help it?
by Travelling_Frenchie
12 Comments
Honestly, I don’t know if there’s a real solution. The stems are so fragile that sometimes the weight of the rest of the vine is enough to break it off. I have one that I try to move as little as possible and even trim the ends and stick them back into the pot to replace the damaged vines.
Water on leaves with crisp and shrivel them. Also as the stem continues to grow eventually lower leaves tend to be discarded. It’s just kinda what this plant does. I have one that looks a lot like yours. Like others said, I tend to trim branches, water root them, and then stick them in any bald spot that’s cropped up in the mother plant. Or I make more and give them away.
It’s too heavy and pulling itself out of the pot, these really want to crawl, and would cling to a wall or on trees.
Try spiraling a few into the pot and adding some more soil, start some new plants inside the pot. Put it closer to the floor or maybe on some shelves? Or you just have to trim them shorter… Just try and keep track and add soil and make sure they’re buried and not drying out or ripping roots.
In my experience it just grows so much that the roots get choked up in the small space of the pot. They need repotted often but they’re indestructible because you can just keep cutting the healthy bits off and stick them straight into fresh soil to regrow.
I actually just watched a YouTube video because I just got one of these. The guy in the video said the turning of leaves is due to the excess water sitting on the leaves, he recommended bottom watering for the plant. Apparently they don’t like having water sit on their leaves. They also need to be propagated often as they actually would prefer to grow out roots into more soil as they root quickly and easily.
I can find the video if you’re interested.
I have one of these and a nanouk variety. Neither of mine are big enough at this point to cause weight issues so the other commenters are probably on track as well but I always always bottom water these things so if you’re not, that’s a good idea. I pot mine in terracotta pots specifically to aid with bottom watering. Terracotta is porous and absorbs moisture. It can also cause them to dry out a little faster but I set the pot down in a bowl of water and let it absorb through the pot until the soil near the top feels moist. Prior to terracotta I used a syringe to squirt water on just the soil & avoid the leaves.
Nursery owner here. These guys like a lot more light than most people give them. They don’t care about water on their leaves or anything for that matter, but they will get leggy and lose top growth if they are not grown in high light. They do great in full outdoor morning light. 6-8 hours. Just don’t put them in afternoon sun or it may scorch them when summer rolls around. We grow them in 30% shade cloth houses with all day light. And they love it. Inside light even near a window is nowhere near the light they need to stay full. For water they like to be slightly on the moist side but can dry out half way through the pot. If you allow these guys to dry out all the way you will get the brown crispy leaves. I see this kind of growth when we have these down on tables with hanging baskets above them shading the plants. They adapt extremely well to lower light but do get stringy. Just pinch them anywhere and stick the cut back into the soil. They will start to root Ina week if kept moist and start growing again. I have grown 10’s of thousands of these over the last 20 years. I have had a few get away from me and start looking leggy but I have never had one that I couldn’t fix Ina week or two to get looking nice again.
I think the only way to deal with it is to accept that you will have to continually take cuttings and either add back into the pot or prop separately to make a new plant (and eventually toss the old one when it just gets so bald on top that you can’t stand it anymore). Luckily it propagates readily.
Solution. This plant is a creeping ground cover plant so, give it ground to cover. If you have tall skinny plants with just soil at the base, stick the inch plant in there too!
For example, any trimmings you cut off the main plant, pop them in the base of a yucca plant or a monstera. It will cover ground the main plant doesn’t, help with soil and moisture control, and it means you dont have a pretty pot with a big dirt area that probably has some of that white mould stuff.
This way if any of your cuttings die they can easily be replaced, if they dont do well with the host plant they can easily be removed and if the mother plant dies then you have plenty of clones to take her place!
Seems like a win win to me.
It’s the weight of the stems it pulls them too much. It’s a crawler really so if you can get it something to crawl along or wrap
They seem to always do this! They get too heavy.
These are my least favourite plant and this is one of the reasons why.
Everyone acts like these are so easy and you can prop them so easy blah blah.
They are the most finicky, difficult and prone to root rot plants I have ever owned.
You water too much the leaves shrink and turn brown. You water even the slightest bit more and now root rot!
They are banished from my home foreverrrrrr