I know from first-hand experience that growing Peperomia prostrata can be problematic.
Everything's going well until one day it just melts and turns into this.
This has happened to me on quite a few occasions and it's incredibly disheartening
but by the end of this video you're going to see just how easy it is to propagate it
so this will never happen to you again.
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Peperomia prostrata or String of Turtles has become one of my most used terrarium plants.
I first realised it would perform well in a terrarium when i placed some leftover cuttings in
my paludarium which has humidity levels of between 90 to 100% most of the day. A few weeks passed by
and I noticed that the leaves had plumped up and that little white roots had been coming
out from the stem. I was a little surprised as I'd half expected the cuttings to fail,
not thrive! But after a little reading it's clear to see why they'd worked so well.
Peperomia prostrata comes from a part of the world that's incredibly humid. The reason why it fails
so often as a houseplant is because 1. It iss grown in a type of soil that is far too moisture
retentive and 2. The levels of humidity in a standard home are far too low for it to thrive.
Now, I'm not saying that it won't grow or even show signs of being healthy
but for it to thrive it needs to be in conditions that replicate its natural environment.
So, I mentioned earlier that Peperomia prostrata or String
of Turtles is an epiphyte but what exactly is an epiphyte?
The dictionary definition of an epiphyte is: A plant that grows on another plant
especially one that is not parasitic, such as the numerous ferns, bromeliads,
air plants and orchids growing on tree trunks in tropical rainforests.
The important point to remember here is that an epiphyte grows on the surface of a tree
or another plant. Tree bark in humid and wet conditions holds onto moisture
but allows any excess to flow through. It's water retentive yet well draining,
and combined with the humid environment it creates the perfect atmosphere for epiphytes to grow.
As much as I'd like to I can't have an amazonian tree in my workshop but what I can do is recreate
that moisture retentive yet well draining surface that epiphytes love using lava rock.
Lava rock is a porous rock that holds onto water and allows any excess to flow through,
a little bit like the tree bark. It's often used in bonsai for its water retentive qualities
and that's exactly why I'm going to use it here.
It may not be a tree trunk but it's not a million miles away and I'll be
using grains that are between two and eight millimeters big.
If you've ever had issues with Peperomia prostrata, I want to know!
Leave me a comment below and tell me what happened.
Here's what you're going to need: A clear plastic container with a lid
Good quality substrate. To see what I use click the link above
Fine grained lava rock A spray bottle with water
Peperomia prostrata cuttings
First things first, you need a clear plastic tub with a lid.
It's really important that you have a lid, a clear lid,
because the light needs to shine through and also the lid traps in the humidity so that's really
important .Try and get a strong box this I got from just a hardware store but it's very sturdy.
Okay, so the first thing we're gonna do is put our substrate in, I don't need a lot of substrate,
probably about a centimeter or two.
Peperomia prostrata doesn't have a very big root system so we don't need lots and lots of
substrate for it to root into and we're going to have a layer of lava rock on top of that anyway
Right so that's our centimeter of substrate gone in
Now, so now our substrate is in place
and as I mentioned I only used about a centimeter I'm. Now going to add the lava rock
What I like to do is spread it just to put it into the middle
and then from there, I'll just use my hands to spread it out a bit
ideally, I'd like to create sort of around about a centimeter or two on top of the substrate
so we shouldn't really have any substrate showing through
well a little bit doesn't matter, we don't need to be so exact
right so that's in place
Now, I'm going to use my spray bottle on the mist setting
Maybe slightly off so yeah just to damp this this lava rock now it's time to add the cuttings
and as I mentioned I use rootless cuttings and they're going to be of different sizes so this,
for example, is a small one and all I do is I just drape them right on top of the lava rock.
and this one is a bit larger
So, I don't need to be so precious about this, you might see the odd leaf die but that's totally
normal. What I like to do is add some springtails in here so if a leaf does die and start to rot
then they take care of that. However, if you don't want to do that then just remove the leaf.
Last one! Okay, there we have it I'm gonna give it one last spray
There we have it! And you want to keep this under a grow light, I use under cabinet warm white LEDs
which are inexpensive and you can purchase them online but it's important they have some light.
So, give it a go! It's super easy and I've had great success
propagating Peperomia prostrata this way. If you enjoyed this video and you'd like to
discuss it further you can catch me on Instagram live every Monday at 3pm GMT
or you can join my discussion group on Facebook it's called 'Terrarium Group'
and you can put in a request to join. The link is in the description below.
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