hi everyone it's marianne
and welcome to day two of 12 days of plantmas
today let's talk about two underrated plant varieties that deserves more hype
if you've been along with me on my plant journey this year
you know that i'm very much a pothos girl
i have several varieties in my collection
and i love the plant so much that i wrote an entire reference guidebook on it
and i'm so glad that pothos is finally getting the recognition and hype it deserves
but i also thought that there's at least two more underrated plant varieties
that deserve the equal hype
because just like pothos plants they're very accessible
they're great for beginners
and they also have a lot more varieties than people are aware of
and those are the tradescantia plants
and the sygonium plants
so the first plant that i want to talk about is the tradescantia plants
and i think tradescantia plants got a bad rep in the plant community because of its common name
which a lot of people found offensive or inappropriate
and to be honest for me that's probably the reason i stayed away from this plant variety
because of its common name
but now that i think about it it's kind of foolish to blame the plant for the common name it has
because it did not give itself the common name
so i just stick to the scientific name it has which is the tradescantia
and i just call it by that name
and i know other people try to give it another common name like wandering dude
but i also don't like to genderize my plans even though i consider a lot of my plants as females
i used to do that now i try to stay away from that because i also don't think that's appropriate
plants don't have genders for the most part i know the science behind
it there's like female and male parts when it comes to cross-pollination
but in general plants do not have gender identities so i just don't assign genders to them
but okay i digress
with the tradescantia plants i just stick to its scientific name
which i think is a beautiful name tradescantia
the tradescantia comes in many varieties but i think
the most popular one is the tradescantia zebrina
which has the silver variegation on top and it has a purple underside
and i was able to get my hands on a large pot of tradescantia zebrina
but at that time i wasn't really into the plants so i ended up selling it
but recently i've been really into tradescantia especially
the tradescantia that has pink variegation in them
because i love pink plants
i currently have about four tradescantia varieties these are mostly tradescantia
varieties that has pink variegation in them
and i think tradescantia that has pink variegation in them are one of the prettiest pink plants
first one that i've got was actually from a subscriber elizabeth
which is this one this is the tradescantia spa-ca-thea spacathea
i'm not really sure how to pronounce the complete scientific name of this one
but i love this one because it does have that pink variegation on it
and this is also very easy to grow when i got it was a very small cutting but it grows quite fast
and i also have the tradescantia nanouk in my sights for the very long time
but it was kind of hard to find until i attended a plant swap
where i was able to get a cutting of the tradescantia nanouk
and this is my cutting of the tradescantia nanouk
this one started out as one small cutting as well
the great thing about the tradescantia is it grows so fast and also propagate really really fast
so i have this one in leca
you can see how much root it has grown in such a short period of time
so if you want a plant that is fast growing
that roots fast and propagates fast definitely check out the tradescantia plant
and another tradescantia that i got from the plant swap
is this tradescantia fluminesis tri-color pink
this looks very much similar to the callisa repens i don't know if it's actually the same
but callisa repens is a cousin of the tradescantia
but this when i got at a plant swap
the person that i traded it with labeled it as a tradescantia fluminesis tricolor
and this one is also a very much fast grower because this one i wasn't even sure
it would survive but now it has lots of new leaves
and i can't wait to be able to propagate this too and make it into a much larger plant
and this one is the tradescantia fluminesis bianca
this one is supposed to have a lot of white variegated leaves on it
but so far i'm not really seeing any
there's probably like leaves that has streaks of white and pink in them
but so far it's a lot of green leaves and it has a bit of a purple underside
but not quite just at a certain angle of the light
but this one also grew really really fast when i bought this off Etsy
it was not in a good shape i thought i was gonna lose it
but i just put it in soil and next thing i knew
the next time i noticed that it was already growing so much leaves
and i'm gonna show you how to propagate the tradescantia
and the next one is syngonium
kind of like the tradescantia all you need is a small plant or even a cutting of it
and as long as you keep propagating from it you'll have a large plant in no time
because there are such fast propagators and such fast growers
and the very first one that i got was actually also a cutting from a plant swap
which is this pink syngonium
and it's kind of flopping because it needs support already has grown so much
and this one the leaves started as pink color and then they eventually fade into this green
but the veins still retain that pink color in them
and this is probably one of the most common syngonium that you can find in garden centers
so this one is very much accessible
the next syngonium that i got is also of a pink variety this one is the syngonium pink splash
you could probably see a theme here as well i like pink plants
and the reason that i was able to discover the tradescantia and the syngonium plants
is because of their beautiful pink varieties
and this one i got from the plantier in chicago
if you haven't watched it yet go check out my chicago plant
store and plant haul to see where i got this
and this one also started out as a real really small plant
it probably had one or two leaves in it
and i have propagated it since this was a really tall plant
and i wanted to fit it in my ikea greenhouse
so i cut it off and stuck it in the soil and now it has been growing
it formed its new roots and this one as well is also regrowing some of its new leaves
and this one is supposed to fade into green over time like this leaf as well
and just have that splashes of pink in it hence the name pink splash
but so far i haven't really seen it happening yet
all the leaves are still very much pink they do fade into a lighter pink over time
but they still haven't turned into this green leaf right here
this one is one of the original leaves
of the plant when i first got it but so far all the leaves have remained really really pink
i do give it a lot of bright light so maybe that's the reason that it has been retaining
its pink color for a lot longer time
so if you have a pink splash syngonium
and you want to keep the leaves pink for a much longer time then do give it a lot of light
last but not the least is my syngonium white splash or syngonium albo
i got this when i bought plants from thailand
but this one is actually more available now in the us
i've seen it pop up a lot at etsy for i mean the prices are still a little bit high
i think i saw a cutting go for 30 to 50 dollars
but it's still cheaper than other uncommon or rare plants being sold in etsy
and i think this one is just as beautiful as those other
rare or uncommon plants being sold at the market today
and this one's the fast grower so even if you just get a small cutting like i said
it would grow really fast it would form roots really quickly
as you can see over here i have this one it like and you can see how much root it has grown
and this is also not very prone to root rot because all of the plants that i got from thailand
came with root rot except for this one
and it has grown one two three new leaves already
and for me it is a fast grower even though it is very highly variegated plant
this one i haven't tried propagating yet but as you can see
with the roots already coming out at the bottom of the pot
i also have to transfer this into a much larger pot
normally during this time i would refrain from doing any repotting
but since this one is a leca i think it's okay to put it in a much larger pot
which is what i'm about to do right now
those are two underrated plant varieties that i highly recommend the tradescantia plants
and the syngonium plants
there are so much more varieties of tradescantia and syngonium that's out there
i myself i'm still trying to discover a lot of them
and i would happy to discover a lot more of them with you next year
because i think i'm going to keep my eye
out for more tradescantia and syngonium varieties next year
but yeah that's it for today's Plantmas
and i'll see you on day three of 12 days of Plantmas
bye