Help my Angel vine/maidenhair vine!
Plant Parent
I’m starting my questions with the plant that gives me the most stress. It almost makes me cry to see it this way.
When I bought it, it was full of green leaves everywhere. Got it at a local flower/green plant store. The woman said she’d had it in the same place in the middle of the store, which is surrounded by east and north windows – but not in direct sun ever, for a long time. I was instructed to keep soil moist and some water in the pebble tray underneath. But only enough water left in the pebble tray to touch the pebbles, not fill the tray. She also said not to repot it as it doesn’t like that at all. I purchased it about 6 months ago.
Is there anything I can do from here? I read pruning it helps. And was told I could save some of it by propagating some of the new growth. However I’m not sure doing that in winter is a good idea. I feel the dirt in the pot it is in, my be inadequate as well but the woman said not to repot it….on top of my understanding that repots should be done in spring. Some other information I read says this plant dies back in the winter.
I’m at a loss.
Darryl
Could you please SHOW me the window? I need to see the distance and the size of the window in order to properly assess the light situation.
Plant Parent
Darryl
Thanks for the photo! That’s all I need to tell you this:
I’ve never owned this plant before but I looked it up and looked at the lighting requirements. After surveying a few reputable sites, they consistently say “Full Sun to Part Sun”, which are OUTDOOR light designations. This means that indoors, you would need to put the plant in front of your biggest, sunniest window – and even then, the plant will become more sparse until it balances with the significantly lower light levels. This means that no matter where you put the plant, it WILL lose probably MOST of the leaves you bought it with as it adjusts to drastically lower light levels. Plants grown at home will never look the way they looked when they were grown at the nursery.
At the current place where the plant lives, that would be considered VERY LOW light. I wouldn’t even put a pothos there.
You might be able to grow very small pieces of this plant as a “small plant” rather than this large topiary style planter – something like that really belongs outdoors where it would have had a very wide view of the sky and perhaps shielded from the sun directly above. There was no chance for this plant to remain “bushy” for longer than a few months indoors. Hope this helps.
References:
http://www.costafarms.com/plants/maidenhair-vine https://www.provenwinners.com/plants/muehlenbeckia/big-leaf-creeping-wire-vine-muehlenbeckia-complexa
https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/11221/Muehlenbeckia-complexa/Details
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My angel vine plant has set ina south facing window for over a year. It has done beautifully until lately… dropping tons of leaves and a few are yellow…also several of the leaves have become shiny? I sprayed with Neem… any suggestions? Thank you
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Here’s good news – this plant, maidenhair vine, is deciduous! It loses leaves naturally in the winter and gets lots of new leaves in the spring so long as it’s healthy. 🙂 I keep mine in a much brighter place than your picture shows, and well away from heat sources. good luck!