Wandering Jew Plants
10” hanging Striped Wandering Jew, well established.
Wandering Jew Plants
There are multiple varieties of the Wandering Jew plants which are all members of the Spiderwort family, the best known to us are the Striped Wandering Jew(Tradescantia Zebrina), and the Purple Heart Wandering Jew(Tradescantia Pallida). These two varieties are the plants that really lit a fire with us to dive in to propagation. I have heard many different reasons for the name all of which involve their ease of propagation. Some say it is their ability to naturally spread through self propagation, flourishing even in poor conditions, or that they are spread through the plant community from one collector to another with ease.
10” hanging Purple heart Wandering Jew
Purple Heart Wandering Jew flower.
While googling Wandering Jew you will be met with ad after ad selling “Rare Wandering Jew” most of which are not very rare at all. People probably get away with this because upclose these plants have such a beautiful, shining colorshow.
These beauties are very easy to take care of. They do require some occasional trimming maintenance. With every trim out though, you can easily multiply your plant stock. So far the easiest way that we have found is to trim out all the shoots or stems down to have a few leaves left. This trim up won’t hurt the parent plant at all, as it grows back it will thicken up and bush out. Take the cuttings and trim them down to have about 3 leaves at the top. Simply cut the remaining leaves off, and cut the stem leaving about 3-4 inches of leafless stem. Plant as many of these as you can fit into a container leaving 1.5-2 inches between each.
Freshly planted Striped Wandering Jew cuttings.
Purple Heart wandering Jew and it’s pups.
Once transplanted keep the soil moist and leave them in partial sun. In about a month you will have a flourishing plant to keep, sell, or just give away to spread the love. At My Gardening Habit we try to find a healthy mix of these. If you are interested in purchasing one of these plants, please consider making that purchase from us to help support My Gardening Habit. We offer these plants as well as others in various stages of life. Until we get our store up and running please reach out directly for our current offerings.
Underside of a Purple Heart Wandering Jew cutting.
For the first time since we began growing Striped Wandering Jew(Tradescantia Zebrina), they have begun producing flowers!
