Workshop on Trailing Plants and Their Care

Workshop on Trailing Plants and Their Care

Trailing house plants have long, trailing stems. Growing them in hanging baskets, pots hanging from the ceiling, or sitting on a shelf shows them off beautifully, enabling their stems to cascade down for dramatic effect. These unique plants can be used for interior decorating in many ways, thanks to their ability to grow on any surface.

Watch our workshop held on 11th June, on “Trailing Plants and Their Care” with our speaker Ms. Abiha Arun. She is an IT professional and a home gardener. Plants are her stress buster and she spends all her free time with plants. You can connect with her on her Instagram page “crazy_garden_er” where she shares about her beautiful home garden.

Topics to be covered:
1. What are trailing/ hanging plants?
2. Their care and Maintenance.
3. How to Propagate?

Abiha and her Trailing Plants Care: 

“Hello everyone, welcome to the workshop with TAOS. Today we have with us, Ms. Abiha Arun. Hello Abiha, how are you?” Asked Zehra.

“Hi Zehra, I am doing good.” Said Abiha.

“Welcome to our workshop. It’s a pleasure to have you with us today. Let me introduce you to all of our speaker for today’s workshop, she is an IT professional and a home gardener by passion. She spends most of her free time with her plants in her garden. So today she’s going to tell us all about Trailing plants, their care, and how we can propagate them. So without any delay, let’s get started.” Said Zehra.

“Hi everyone, nice to meet you all. Thank you the Affordable Organic Store and Zehra for giving me this opportunity. I love gardening very much, I started gardening at a small age. I regularly check my plants every morning after getting up. It became my daily routine. After the lockdown, I started devoting everything to gardening which made me happy. 

So, today I will cover how to grow these hanging plants, what kind of soil to use, how much to water the plant, and the sunlight requirements. So, this is Tangled Heart and Turtle Vine, you can grow these plants very easily. But when started growing, I initially failed many times. But with time, patience and training I was successful in propagating the Tangle Heart plant from its mother plant in 5-6 days. As you can see, this is the sedum variety Turtle Vine propagated from the mother plant. I got this mother plant from a nursery. As you can see this bushy plant is Callisia Repens. This is baby Sandra’s, this plant produces Pink flowers. The plant leaves can be of the simple variety and variegated variety with a white and green color pattern on the leaves. Coming to these pothos varieties, I have a good amount of pothos either variegated or normal.” Said Abiha.

“So,

1. “all these plants are outdoor plants or indoor plants?” Asked Zehra.

“You can keep the pothos plant indoors, it will be green in color. Even if you keep the plant outside, make sure to not keep the plant in direct sunlight. Keeping it in indirect sunlight can make it have colors and look variegated.” Said Abiha.  

“Now let’s talk about the potting mix

  1. ‌So I suggest you use cocopeat as it holds water while watering the plant but in regular soil used in hanging plants it gets heavier and there may be chances of the pot breaking and being heavy for mobility. But cocopeat being light you can move the pot easily and it will not damage the pot. 
  2. ‌While potting in the pot there are drainage holes. So if you directly put the soil, it may come out of the holes. So I use clay balls to cover up the holes. 
  3. ‌ I also have vermiculite, which provides good direction to the plant, and it will make the potting mixture very light and will provide nutrients to the soil for plants’ growth. 
  4. ‌This is vermicompost, this is a natural organic fertilizer. I use vermicompost as fertilizer for my plants, making them grow very healthily. 

Now, I will mix it all. Now I will fill the pot drainage holes with clay balls and add the soil mixture. This will make the pot lighter to handle.

Now, let’s talk about watering the plant,

  1. In hot weather (summer), you should frequently water the plant i.e. daily. The best time to water the plant is before 8 in the morning and after 5 in the evening. It is better to water the plant in the morning rather than in the evening as it is said that in the evening the plant goes to sleep. There are chances that the water may accumulate in the leaves of the plant and may drain. 
  2. You have to water in a way that through the drainage holes the water should come out. 

2. “do you use plates beneath the pot for the easy drain?” Asked Zehra.

“I use hanging pots for hanging plants, so for this kind of plants, any plates are not required because the excess water can drain directly from drainage holes. But in case you are keeping the plant indoors then plates are required to keep your place clean or else the water may drain out. 

Now, let’s come to Sunlight requirements

  1. For Pothos, you should not keep it in direct sunlight, or else the result would be the burning of the leaves. So you should keep pothos in indirect sunlight as in a shady place the growth of the plant may slow down. 
  2. Callisia Repens also known as Pink lady, this plant needs full direct sunlight for its better growth. 
  3. For Turtle Vine, it is not required to be placed in direct/full sunlight. If you place Turtle Vine in direct sunlight there may be a chance of yellowing of the leaves of the plant. The Turtle Vine is advisable to be kept in indirect sunlight or the morning sunlight, and never in the afternoon sunlight. 
  4. For Tangled Heart, is not advisable to be kept in direct/full sunlight, but can be kept in the morning sunlight. 
  5. This grassy plant should be kept in full/direct sunlight then it will grow nicely. This will turn out to be a variegated variety of plants if kept in direct sunlight. This plant requires more water and the soil mix should always be wet.
  6. The Spider plant, should not be kept in direct sunlight. The propagation is easy for this plant as it can be propagated through cuttings.” Said Abiha.

3. “Abiha do these plants grow in all seasons?” Asked Zehra.

“Yes, it will grow in all seasons. I will give you my example, in Tamil Nadu 2-3 months back it was raining heavily, and at that time the plants were growing well. Now it is extremely hot, but still, all plants are doing well. You just have to take care of the plants and need to provide them with the proper amount of water and indirect sunlight for healthier growth.” Said Abiha.

Now, coming to Pruning,

  1. In every plant, you should do regular pruning. You should remove dead leaves for better growth of the plant. 
  2. By pruning the plant will grow bushier. 

Now, let’s see about Pesticides, 

  1. So usually, the hanging plant doesn’t get more pest attacks.
  2. My plants usually got attacked by spiders, so used Neem Oil. I sprayed Neem Oil thoroughly in my hanging plants to avoid pest/insect attacks. 

Finally Propagation,  

  1. The main point to keep in mind is to not opt for a bigger pot at the initial stage. 
  2. While propagating you should always choose a healthy stem/cutting as it will adapt faster to the new soil and environment and grow properly. The cutting should be around 6-7 inches. 
  3. In the hanging plant, there is some kind of fruit. You need to keep the stem inside the soil and spread the rest on the soil and put some soil on it. 
  4. After putting in the soil you should water it once, initially for 2-3 days you should keep it in a shady place. 
  5. After witnessing some growth, you can keep the baby plant in indirect sunlight. 
  6. You can place 2-3 varieties of plants in the same pot. 

So, in these kinds of hanging plants, in each leaf nodule, there is a root so by making cutting and placing it in the soil will instigate its growth.    

This is also a hanging flowering plant with blue flowers, it is named Blue Daisy. You need to keep this plant in full sunlight to bloom. This plant you may be familiar with it, this a sedum variety in which leaves are very thick. This plant usually do not produce any flowers but it is a very pretty plant. This plant should not be kept in direct sunlight or else the leaves will turn yellow. It should be kept in a shade and partial sunlight. It can be propagated through cutting. 

So, these plant provide us with many surprises and happiness. Sometimes we feel low and dull, but spending time with plants all our worries vanishes. I will suggest you that spending time with plants makes you very happy and healthy.” Said Abiha.

4. “How much time did it take for the plants behind you to grow this long and healthy?” Asked Zehra.

“So, I started my gardening journey in lockdown period. So I used to buy plants online for online nurseries. For initial 3-4 months I was not successful, but I never gave up. Last year, I completely learned how to grow these hanging plants. So from the past 6 months, I was able to successfully grow and propagate these plants. 

So, when you are not able to grow the plant nicely, never lose hope. The plants love you. You need little patience and practice. They will catch up with you and would grow beautifully.” Said Abiha.

Thank you so much, Abiha.

“It was wonderful looking at your beautiful plants and hearing about their care. It was an amazing session, thank you so much for giving your valuable time. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and experience with us.” 

HAPPY GARDENING!