by Evin Morrison, Extension Master Gardener
Photos © Evin Morrison
Instead of letting the winter blues settle in, take a page from all the pink decorations popping up in the stores and pick up a bright and cheery houseplant. Valentine’s Day may be over, but a new pink plant is a great way to weather the rest of winter.
Pink Veined Fittonia
Fittonias are often also called nerve plants, so don’t be shocked if you see that on a plant tag. They come in a variety of colors — white, pink, and red — but are known for their leaf pattern. The coloring comes in the veining on the leaves and is offset by a deep green. It needs bright light to thrive, but too much sun will most certainly burn the leaves and leave you with a crispy plant. Fittonias are one of the thirstier plants you will bring home and will start to wilt as soon as they dry out. It’s important to keep this plant where you will see it frequently, so you’re always reminded to keep it watered. Underwatered fittonias will perish quickly.
Fittonias grow much like a groundcover and in ideal conditions will stay relatively compact. As it grows and spreads outwards, the stems will readily root into the soil surface, creating a carpet of colorful greenery. In not enough light, the plant will stretch towards its light source and get leggy, but thankfully they are easy to propagate and make even more plants. Simply trim it at a node and use a water propagating method to encourage roots to grow. Once you have roots, you can pop the propagated piece back in the pot for a fuller plant.
Pair all three types together for a colorful fittonia medley!
Pink Syngonium
Syngoniums are a tried-and-true houseplant. With so many variations on the market, it’s not surprising that there are a few pink ones to choose from, but their care is all the same. Syngoniums, often called arrow plants or arrowhead vines, are upright growers when they are small, but once they reach maturity they can start to trail and vine. The vines can be trimmed back to keep the more upright growth pattern and propagated to either create a larger plant or to share. Syngoniums are a true rainforest plant; they like moisture and humidity. They are right at home in a bright bathroom and will appreciate the higher humidity. For light they prefer bright, indirect light. Think of a space that’s bright enough to read a book without turning on the lights, but not directly in the sun. In dry conditions the leaves will start to droop and in too much sun they will burn and get crispy.
As for coloring there are so many options. Syngonium podophyllum ‘Pink Splash’ will give you a paint splattered look, Syngonium erythrophyllum `Llano-Carti Road’ is a dark green leaf with a burgundy underside, while Syngonium podophyllum ‘Batik’ boasts a heavily veined white and green leaf. The coloring differences make this variety a fun one to collect!
Make sure you don’t mistake a caladium for a syngonium. They can look very similar, but caladiums are much more challenging to keep alive indoors.
Pink Earth Star
You will most likely find this beautiful pink striped plant mixed in with the cacti and succulents, but you might be surprised to find that despite the agave-looking leaves, it’s actually a Brazilian bromeliad. That’s right, it’s more closely related to a pineapple, despite its almost spiny looking, serrated leaves. These rainforest plants make great terrarium companions as long as the soil is fairly well draining to avoid rot.
Pink Stars, like most pink plants, need sunlight to maintain their bright coloring. Too little light and the gorgeous colors will begin to fade to green. To grow, plants need chlorophyll, which is found in the green parts of leaves. If a plant with a color variation, be it white variegation or pink variegation, isn’t getting enough light to produce the energy it needs, the plant will produce more green chlorophyll in place of the colorful segments to give itself a better chance of survival. Of course, it’s a balancing game, because too much light will cause burning and browning. Pink Stars like most bromeliads are epiphytes, but these are happiest planted in well-draining soil rather than mounted on a board with moss.
Propagating plants in the bromeliad family is quite a bit different than the previous plants we’ve discussed. Bromeliads, like the Pink Earth Star, will reach maturity and flower. The flowers are an indicator that the plant has reached the end of its days. Once the flower appears and dies off, the main plant will also start to die, but in its place small plants known as “pups” will start to grow around the base of the mother plant. These pups will grow using the energy from the mother plant. Once you can see that they have produced their own roots, they can be divided off main stem and planted up on their own to grow to maturity.
Pink Princess Philodendron
These famous princesses of the houseplant industry at one time were fetching hundreds of dollars per plant. Thanks to the great demand, there’s much more supply and prices have dropped back into the $20 range. For a while, you could only order this plant online, through waitlists, and from private sellers. Luckily, they’re popping up in local plant shops and hardware stores.
Philodendrons are a great houseplant, and like syngoniums there are many colorful varieties to choose from. The ‘Pink Princess’, as the name suggests, boasts large pink segments of color mixed in with some splashes of white on dark green leaves. Light plays a major role in growing philodendrons indoors. They need fairly high light to maintain a large leaf size, to avoid stretching or reaching, and maybe most important of all, to keep the prized variegation of color. If your plant starts only producing small leaves or if you notice the length of stem between leaves (internodal spacing) is continuing to increase, it’s time to move it to a brighter spot. The stretched-out stems can be cut and propagated in water, but there’s no guarantee that you will have the same variegation on your propagated pieces that the original plant did.
Philodendrons do really well in a chunkier soil mixture. Adding some orchid bark into your preferred houseplant soil creates air pockets that allow the roots to breathe. Since these plants are prone to root rot, a looser soil mixture can help ensure that you aren’t overwatering.
While these plants are usually sold as a small upright houseplant, philodendrons are climbers at heart. If you choose to give your plant something to climb (like a moss pole), as the plant grows, roots will begin to form at the nodes along the stem. These roots will grow into, and cling to the support you’ve provided and grow upwards — much like a plant attaching itself to a tree in the wild to get closer to the sunlight.
Stromanthe Triostar
So you love the ‘Pink Princess’ philodendron, but you want a challenge? Look no further than the Stromanthe Triostar. This lovely tropical plant boasts similar sectioned coloring to the ‘Pink Princess’, but as the name suggests has three distinct colors sharing space on the leaves: pink, white and green. But then when you peek at the underside of the leaves, you are greeted with a beautiful magenta hue.
The challenging part comes in the form of humidity and moisture needs. Stromanthes and Calatheas are known for being hard-to-keep-alive houseplants. Their humidity needs are much higher than most people are able to keep their homes. The lack of humidity leads to brown and crispy edges, leaves dying back, and pest pressures. Once the plant is stressed due to its high-maintenance moisture needs, it will send out a pheromone that ends up attracting pests like spider mites to make a home.
Stromanthes live quite happily outdoors in Northern Virginia during the summer months, but once it starts to cool down in the winter, they will need to come inside. If you do bring home a stromanthe, keep it out of direct sunlight. The white and pink segments surely will burn if exposed to too much sun. If you choose to let it live outside all summer, then find a shady spot where it can thrive in our high humidity but be protected from the scorching sun.