Tricolor tradescantia (Tradescantia 'Tricolor') care

Vines & trailers · easy to keep

Tricolor tradescantia (Tradescantia 'Tricolor') wants bright indirect light; the colours need it. Water it every 5 days. Keep the compost lightly damp. It wilts fast and recovers fast, but repeated wilting costs it the lower leaves. Pot it in standard compost with perlite. A balanced feed at half strength monthly in spring and summer, and repot once a year. Humidity: room humidity is fine. Mildly toxic to cats and dogs; the sap can also cause a skin rash in people who handle it a lot.

The pink-striped tradescantia: leaves banded in white, green and bright pink, and among the fastest-growing plants in this catalogue. Keep it bright or the pink vanishes, and restart it from cuttings each year before it goes bare in the middle.

Quick facts

Water: Water every 5 days. Keep the compost lightly damp. It wilts fast and recovers fast, but repeated wilting costs it the lower leaves.
Light: Bright indirect light; the colours need it.
Humidity: Room humidity is fine.
Soil: Standard compost with perlite.
Feeding: A balanced feed at half strength monthly in spring and summer.
Repotting: Repot once a year.
Toxic to pets: Mildly toxic to cats and dogs; the sap can also cause a skin rash in people who handle it a lot.
Difficulty: Easy.
Mature size: Trails to 1 m.
Native to: A cultivar of a Central American species.

Watering a Tricolor tradescantia

Water every 5 days. Keep the compost lightly damp. It wilts fast and recovers fast, but repeated wilting costs it the lower leaves.

That cadence is the one PlantParlour sets for this species when you name it, and it is deliberately on the cautious side — a plant that asks a day early is safer than one that asks a day late. Log each watering and the reminder moves with the plant rather than with the calendar.

Light

Bright indirect light, with an hour of direct sun welcome. The purple, pink and cream stripes wash out to plain green in a dim spot faster than almost any other houseplant.

Humidity and temperature

Room humidity is fine. Central heating in winter is what turns a comfortable room into a dry one, and it is the usual reason an established plant suddenly browns at the edges or picks up spider mites.

Soil and potting

Ordinary potting compost with perlite. Tradescantias are unfussy and grow at a speed that makes the mix almost irrelevant.

Feeding

A balanced feed at half strength monthly in spring and summer. Stop feeding in autumn and start again when you see new growth in spring — feeding a plant that isn't growing just builds up salts in the pot.

Repotting

Repot once a year. Every spring, or simply start again from cuttings — a tradescantia is at its best in its first year and goes bare in the middle in its second.

Common problems

Bare leggy stems with leaves only at the ends
Normal growth habit plus too little light.

Fix: Pinch the tips out regularly and root the cuttings back into the same pot. Move it brighter.
Stripes fading to green
Not enough light.

Fix: Move it brighter and cut out any wholly green stems — they outgrow the variegated ones.
Brown crisp leaves
It dried out.

Fix: Water more often; tradescantias are thirstier than they look.

Propagation

Absurdly easy. Any piece of stem roots in water in a week, or push several cuttings straight back into the parent's pot to keep it full.

A cutting taken in PlantParlour keeps its link to the plant it came from, so a propagation years later still traces back to the mother plant — which is the point if you ever sell or trade it.

Toxicity and safety

Mildly toxic to cats and dogs; the sap can also cause a skin rash in people who handle it a lot.

Questions people ask

How often should you water a Tricolor tradescantia?

Water every 5 days as a starting point — that is the cadence PlantParlour sets for Tradescantia 'Tricolor'. Keep the compost lightly damp. It wilts fast and recovers fast, but repeated wilting costs it the lower leaves. Light, pot size and the time of year all move that number, so treat it as a reminder to go and check rather than a rule.

How much light does a Tricolor tradescantia need?