When growing a certain plant species in your home, mimicking its natural growing conditions ensures optimal growth and development. So, you should try providing similar conditions for your growing plant as nature does in its natural habitat. Wandering Jew plants can be grown indoors to take your home’s beauty to the next level. The purple and green leaves create beautiful colors inside your home, prompting you to research the necessary growth factors.
The wandering Jew plant requires minimum effort and maintenance to grow. It thrives in warm and humid months but requires special care during the winter season. Where you place your wandering Jew plant is important because it can make all the difference when growing it indoors.
Let’s explore everything you need to know about growing your wandering Jew plants in your home.
What it Takes to Grow Your Wandering Jew Plant Indoors
As mentioned, the wandering Jew plant is not resilient to cold winter months. It makes sense to shift your plants in your front garden during the summer months. However, you can bring them back inside when it becomes frosty.
The three most important factors to consider when growing your wandering Jew plant indoors are watering habits, humidity, and light exposure. Other factors to consider are fertilizer requirements and occasional pruning to facilitate new and healthy growth.
Let’s explore each of these in detail.
Watering Your Wandering Jew Plant
All plants require water to grow. However, too much or too little water can massively hinder their steady growth and development. If your wandering Jew plant is in a pot, you need to maintain adequate dampness in the soil.
Too much water is a no-no, and if your soil is soaked, your plant may experience symptoms of ill health. Excess moisture in the soil can lead to root rot. Using the right soil mixture, which must be well-draining, you can allow your wandering Jew plant to grow effectively.
Any excess water is drained from the bottom, and you can get away with overwatering your plant occasionally. However, if the soil’s water concentration is fairly high, you can expect your plant to die.
Maintaining Ideal Humidity Levels for Your Wandering Jew Plant
Your wandering Jew plant will thrive in high humidity. If humidity begins to drop below acceptable levels, the leaves will wilt and die. For this reason, maintaining adequate humidity in your home is necessary for growing your wandering Jew plant.
During winter, your wandering Jew plant must be brought indoors. However, the air in your home can become dry, leading to symptoms of ill health. One of the ways to counter this is to buy a humidity sensor for your home. This tracks the humidity level in the air and allows you to monitor the conditions in your home.
It is worth noting that you will probably have to invest in a humidifier, depending on where you live. This device will ensure your home’s humidity levels are kept in an ideal range to facilitate your wandering Jew plant’s growth indoors.
Light Requirements for Your Wandering Jew Plant
All plants need sunlight to grow. Plants make their food through a process called photosynthesis. Chlorophyll in the leaves traps sunlight and converts it to nutrients, allowing the plants to grow. However, the wandering Jew plant cannot tolerate too much direct sunlight. For this reason, you need to keep it in the right place to give it the appropriate amount of sunlight.
Too much sunlight exposure can cause your wandering Jew plant’s leaves to burn. Too little light can lead to other complications, such as fading colors in the leaves. You can place your plant near a window facing either east or west.
This way, your plant will receive enough sunlight to grow efficiently and benefit from periods of direct and indirect exposure. During the morning, some direct exposure to sunlight is tolerated well. However, towards evening, the plant will benefit most optimally from indirect light.
Fertilizer Needs for Your Wandering Jew Plant
Without adequate nutrients in the soil, your wandering Jew plant will not grow well. All plants need fertilizer for optimal growth, meaning you must find the right variety for your wandering Jew plant. However, you should only fertilize your plant during the growing seasons, spring and summer. During cold months, your plant will not experience any significant growth, so you should avoid fertilizing it.
Liquid fertilizers work exceedingly well to give adequate growth results. You should use a half-strength fertilizer and choose the organic variety for growing your wandering Jew plant. Chemical fertilizers are another alternative you can use, but wandering Jew plants can be sensitive to their effects.
The fertilization process is highly important because it encourages the growth of flowers. These flowers can add beauty to your home when growing your plants indoors. They range from various colors, such as purple, pink, and white.
Pruning Your Wandering Jew Plants
Wandering Jew plants require pruning as a healthy part of their growth process. You can use clean shears, scissors, or knives to cut new and old growth. This helps the plant grow more fully, and you can expect to see major results from pruning occasionally. If any dead leaves are hanging from the plant, you can simply pinch them off without using shears, which achieves the same results.
Pruning is also an important part of propagating your wandering Jew plant since you can cut below the growth nodes and add the plant to water or soil. Adding a promoter can help the separated plant to develop roots and grow into a baby plant. However, you should wait until the roots are at least two inches long before adding the plant to a well-draining soil mixture.
Final Verdict
Wandering Jew plants can be easily grown indoors, provided you keep certain requirements in mind. As long as you maintain adequate humidity levels, your plant will thrive in the growing season. Other important factors to consider are sunlight exposure, watering frequency, soil mixture type, fertilizer, and pruning. These all play a role in helping your wandering Jew plant grow optimally in your home.
Indoor gardening is an excellent hobby. If you’re a beginner looking to grow your wandering Jew plant in your home, you should do some research beforehand. Knowing about the growing seasons and the growth factors helps you make the right decisions when caring for your plant.