Ceropegia Woodii

06 Jul 2020

Make sure you have a lot of friends to give cuttings to :)

This was the first plant I bought when I moved to the UK, and it turns out its from Southern Africa so go figure. Easy as pie to grow, I've made dozens of plants from the original two I purchased back in 2015.

The main tl;dr points on this plant

Brighter light = faster growth and more leaves
It's a succulent: Water it when the leaves are wrinkly
You can propagate this plant endlessly
Make sure you put this plant in a pot with drainage holes

Even in low light, your plant will be just fine, the growth will be slow (not necessarily a bad thing) and your leaves will be more spaced out (otherwise known as "leggy").

Ceropegia Woodii aka Rosary vine aka String of hearts

The long read

Light

Mine are in a west-facing room. Some get direct sun for sever hours and they're dark green and purple, with dense leaves. Others don't get any direct light and they're silvery-green.

You might find your plant is more silver, more green, more purple depending on where it's placed.

As with all succulents: If you don't give it enough sun the plant will get leggy, which is when the stem between each leaf node becomes longer and longer. In the case of this plant, it doesn't make it less attractive, so you have it easy.

Your plant will also be less active during the growth season (summer) if it doesn't get direct sunlight, which again isn't the worst thing, because perhaps you've positioned it in an area you don't want it to grow too big for.

Humidity

Thankfully this isn't a problem for these little leaves, so let's move on.

Water & Fertiliser

I tend to water mine when the leaves get a bit soft and wrinkly. Once watered they puff up again and are firm to touch. If they get a lot of direct sun (like, if they're next to a west-facing window) I tend to be water a bit more often (mostly because I'm scared I'll leave it too long and they'll turn to crisp).

I love my seaweed fertiliser, and during the growing seasons I splash a little into the water for my woodiis.

Pruning / Propagation

Each of my plants gets 2 haircuts a summer, because otherwise I find I simply don't know what to do with the length of the vine. You might find some beautiful pic on Insta to inspire you with display ideas, but I keep mine at around 1 metre long.

Propagation is easy with Ceropegia Woodii. Here are a few options:

Wait for your plant to develop tubers, place tubers on top of soil in order for them to grow roots
Cut off a vine, trim the bottom-most pair of leaves and the tail-end of the vine, and place in water
Do the above, but place in moist soil

See my post on propagation for more details.

Flowers

This vine gets covered in (very unique) flowers each year, generally in Autumn.

Summary

The easiest plant in the world. Unless you try untangling one.

Articles on caring for this plant which are give more images and more specific advice

Forest London

Hortology

Plant Rescue