Yeah this is one awkward hybrid. I put everything I learned about this one into a single video you can watch here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Xe57mU8EWUc.html
Really appreciate all the field work on these pesky brown leaves, I was tempted to compost mine but found your series and thought the humidity hypothesis was intriguing. My Nanouk used to be in lower humidity in the bedroom next door to my main collection. I moved it with my cluster of tropical plants, thinking it would appreciate the "better conditions" in there. It started looking worse within a week, thinking back on it now. Slowly developing brown patches on the edges of the leaves. Since finding your tradescantia series mine has made a comeback. Its back into the spare room where the humidity is lower (50% vs 60-62%). I think you're on the right track with humidity being a factor. In my case the rooms are side by side, no change in window orientation or size, both rooms have heating vents in exactly the same place and the watering schedule stayed consistent. That's my experience for what it's worth and thank you 🙏
My pleasure!😀 Thanks for recounting your experiences - it does rather look like humidity might be the issue from what you're saying. I haven't done the experiment yet with one in the house as I'll only really get the dry humidity during the winter when the heating is on - that way I'll be able to do an 'almost' controlled experiment with them. I've recently had Tradescantia tricolor 'minima' on some capillary matting and they've been totally wiped out with brown spots - which again lends weight to the theory.
Beautiful job with the transcantia! I think it has had more room to spread and therefore it was able to absorb more sunlight throughout it's leaves . The result being a gorgeous plant! Good job!💚🌿👍
thanks for all your hard work on this experiment! i'm going through something similar with my nanouk and trying to figure it out. helpful to see your progress.
Glad to hear it! I did make another, more up to date video about 'nanouk', which covers everything I've ever learned (from experience) about this plant - you can watch it here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Xe57mU8EWUc.html
My nanouk was likely grown in a greenhouse with extra humidity and it actually started out with some brown leaves. It now sits on a radiator in Massachusetts (lat 41) and is looking much better. As a newbie I just put it where it looked pretty and lucked out. I’m loving your zebrina videos.
Thanks Virginia! I'm honestly flummoxed with Trad. nanouk as my experiments have proved very inconclusive. I have plants that look OK in various conditions - high or low humidity, warm or cool temps, but then I have a plant that looks dreadful in the greenhouse. I'm wondering if all of them go bad with age - and the best idea is just to keep renewing with cuttings. For me at least, the jury is still out on the causes of the brown leaves and spots...Glad to hear yours is doing well!😁
The possible cause of brown spots on the tradescantia is the quality of water,hard water,and calcium rich water and verses rain water may improve the brown spots on the tradescantia plant.
That sounds good enough. Once you managed to get better conditions in the first step, the next step will be to take cuttings for making new plants, then, you can change just one variable in each step: you have chosen humidity in that case. Then you can change watering, lighting intensity, sun exposure and temperature.
I'm hoping I get my answer with just the humidity experiment...🤣 After checking the house it appears that humidity is currently much higher indoors than I thought it would be - well over 70% no matter which room I try. Not surprising I suppose, given that it's hardly stopped raining this last 6 weeks! I'm going to have to wait till the radiators go back on which will likely be by the end of September before I make a start on this.
My brown spot issue is what brought me here! Our nanouk was thriving in the west facing window with 5-6 hours of direct sunlight. We pruned, took cuttings, and removed from the direct light. It was next to the cuttings in water so the humidity directly next to the plant certainly increased. And but we ended up with a sorry looking plant. Going to return to the window amd check for root rot.
Yeah I'd definitely say, no direct sun - especially through a window - but as bright light as possible. And not in a really humid place like a bathroom or kitchen. Then pray to it 3 times a day and massage its leaves. (Maybe not the last 2! 😂)
We had brown marks on all our Spider plants and Peace Lily. We decided to use rain water instead of tap water and they are a lot better now. We’ve got the lilac Tradescantia with smaller leaves and have just taken a lot of cuttings and they look very healthy. We have never sprayed them.
That's interesting Yvonne - as it shows another possible cause of brown marks - although all my plants only ever get rain water, so it can't be the cause in my case.
Yeah I had brown marks and a friend suggested my tap water might be too harsh. To be fair it is pretty hard, but none of my other plants seemed to mind it. At any rate I've switched to filtered water for everyone and there are no more brown spots (for now!). My working theory is it was either the hard water or thrips.... fingers crossed....
I have a Nanouk that I bought a few months ago. She is in a south east facing window so only getting morning light. The temps and humidity are fairly even here and it is definitely a slower growing plant than other types. I have a Zebrina and another kind in a pot next to it and I have trimmed it three times this summer so far. The Nanouk is growing, just much slower, and it is reaching towards the window. I'm in Toronto Canada.
Sounds like they'll go well together. All 'nanouk' hybrids are treated with plant growth regulators to slow them down - they can also alter the colours and the leaf size - but once the PGRs wear off it should grow much more quickly. The question is how long does it last!
My grandma told me that the oils on our fingers cause the brown spots after we touched them on the leaves. I was told, you can touch the stems but dont touch the leaves or they get brown spots and die.
I have a pretty good-looking Tradescantia 'Nanouk'. It's in my house, humidity runs around 40-45%, which is ambient here in New Mexico's monsoon summer, otherwise supplemented by a nearby humidifier. The light is very bright northwest (reflection from a nearby house) with sun very late in the day. I have only seen one such brown spot and I suspect it is from being bumped when I was watering or rearranging plants. I think you may be on to something with humidity. Also wondering whether your brown spots always appear on tips (thus maybe bumping damage) or whether they suddenly appear further down the stem where it is less likely they suffered physical damage. Interesting video. Thanks.
The conditions you describe do seem to back up the idea of humidity being the cause - but of course it could still be something else. I hardly ever touch it so I think physical damage isn't the cause in my particular case - that's not to say physical damage wouldn't result in something similar. The difficulty is that pretty much anything that can go wrong with a plant usually results in the same outward showing of brown leaves!🤣
It looks much better. I think some of the brown tips are from before. Do you use distilled or filtered water? They do well with those and tap water is too hard. I like your experimentation. Thanks for the video.
I use rainwater. I've had people tell me to try using a clay pot which I'm going to try. Also I've heard fertiliser with urea could be the cause. I'm trying everything with multiple plants!🤣
I had bought one recently and has this brown spot problem too. The seller said water the soil not the leaves. Someone said do not put under direct sunlight. My plant is placed just outside the kitchen window. It gets about one hour of 11am sunlight which is quite hot cos I stay in the equator. No problem with humidity. I think is watering the leaves and direct sunlight. Well, I am going to move it to the front where it only gets bright indirect sunlight. Wish me luck!
I've been trying an experiment with humidity where I've kept some with low humidity and others with high - even misting them daily! No spots! It's not made any difference regarding the humidity. So I'm going to change the experiment into watering - by testing too much water alongside occasional watering - i.e. leaving them to dry out. Watch this space! In my case, we don't get much sun anyway so that's unlikely to be issue. Of course, it could be a combination of factors that are causing the brown spots. Good luck with yours too.
I have 14 of these lovely plants - all stem from the same plant originally. I have had - and to some extend still have - problems with brown spots on my leaves. Much of my problem was caused by thrips, but now that problem is under control, some brown spotting still remains. As far as humidity goes, mine is in the house. This summer the humidity was above 65 %, and now it is down to 42%. I can't really tell any difference.
Thanks for your input - I've had a couple of people of say much the same thing. Although I've also had people tell me reducing humidity worked! In a greenhouse (in the UK) the humidity can be far higher than in a house - frequently approaching 100% regardless of the season, and for prolonged periods of time. Of course, that still doesn't mean that it's causing my brown spots and marks. The only way to tell is to test it - something I haven't got around to yet. I definitely don't have thrips so that's not the issue. Someone suggested fertiliser. It's certainly a mystery for many people - me included and I'd love to get to the root of it at some point.
I actually have two of these because I bought one for a friend who hasn’t been able to pick it up yet. They both have a little bit of brown on a couple of leaves, nothing terrible though. But, I always thought that brown tips were because of not enough humidity! So, what I’m going to do, is put one by itself on a plant stand and one in a group of plants that are on a table top (higher humidity with the plants grouped together) and see what happens. If the one by itself turns more brown than the one in the grouping, then it means it needs higher humidity, and the opposite if the other one turns brown. I hope that all makes sense! Thank you for sharing! 💜💚🪴
Yeah this is exactly why I want to test it out. I'd be interested to hear about your results when you get any. Although it would also be useful to know exactly what the actual humidity reading is amongst the group of plants compared to away from them. I suspect it won't be big enough to be measurable - but there's only one way to find out for sure.
@@Grow_Up_Man55 I have a digital humidity reader in the room where most of my plants are. I can put it on the shelf with the group of plants and see if there’s a difference in the humidity reading.
@@Shaylas There wasn’t any difference between the two locations. My friend has the other one now, but it seems like the older leaves are the ones that turn brown. The newer leaves are beautiful. 🤷♀️
Me again. Just checked and the humidity over that radiator is 25%. (Yikes!) I’m now concerned that it won’t like our more humid summers, so I’ll likely move it to a room with air conditioning then.
Following on from what I said to your other comment, I'd wait and see if it starts to go downhill as the humidity might actually not be the issue. I'm now wondering if something in the water is affecting mine - I might try RO water and see what happens.
I have the same issue with my nanouk. While it has propagated well and looks beautiful with new cuttings, the old leaves seem to still brown where the new growth sprouts from. Not sure if this is inevitable because of the new growth but I did read somewhere that these plants do not like tap water and are susceptible to chemical burn. So I guess my next step is to try watering with filtered water.
Although they're lovely plants (sometimes!), they're just a really poor hybrid and have no end of issues. As a rule of thumb I find bright light, warm temperatures, bottom watering with rain-water and daily worship to the Gods of nanouk can work! Seriously though, it's worth a try with the filtered water - but even rain-water can result in browning or blemished leaves as I've discovered to my cost. I put a video together of everything I've ever learned (mainly through experience) of Trad. nanouk - it might be worth a watch: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Xe57mU8EWUc.html
Interesting experiment. My Nanouk Lilac has no brown leaves in the living room. The only issue I am having in the moment is new growth coming in green. But I am going to take your advice and cut them off to see if it corrects itself. Will the bathroom or have higher humidity than other rooms?
Thanks Trish - and yeah the bathroom will likely be pretty high in humidity for the most part.But the only way to know for sure is to measure it with a humidistat. I genuinely thought inside my house would be low, but this week all 3 readings on the humidistats I bought are showing above 70% (not surprising really as it has hardly stopped raining for 6 weeks). I'm going to have to wait till the radiators go on which will remove the humidity for sure.
Totally not trying to persuade your next video but I just got a tradescantia bride veil and boy I feel like this way is a whole different Alien and I dont wanna kill it 😂
@@Grow_Up_Man55 you can meet some awesome plant people in Facebook groups, she posted looking to see if anyone knew what it was and when I noticed it was a bride veil I offered a trade she just got her box yesterday of all the clippings I sent 😊 I found a fb group of just tradescantia lovers too and the group owner just grows hers outside in her yard and sells the clippings as is or rooted too. I was not kidding when I told myself I want to try to collect as many as I can haha
@@Grow_Up_Man55 mine has purplish green leaves, skinny stems, and the stems around the nodes appear white then the rest of the stem is like a dark green. I honestly didnt know that there was different kinds I also didnt know til last week theres 3 or 4 kinds of zerbrina and mines the silver plus
I found on mine, as I’ve only had a month. Brown marks on mine are on the sides of a couple of leaves where they are touching and growing against the top edge of the plant pot which is not sharp.
They’re such Prima Donna’s! Latest findings from my experiments: keep temperatures above 15 degrees Celsius, avoid large fluctuations, bottom water, use a clay pot, and expect that once the stems get to a certain length, you’re getting brown marks and dead leaves. Unless you root the stems along their lengths. Good luck.
Thankyou. I shall keep your great ideas! It is a beautiful plant and like to keep it that way. I was wondering about the clay pot so shall do that next repotting! Have a lovely plant day!
I use exclusively rain-water. But this is what I've been saying all along i.e. high humidity can cause brown leaf marks. Your dry atmosphere seems to add weight to that theory, as our humidity is rarely below 75%. I'm currently some tests to determine if this is true.🤷♂️
Do you mind telling me what type of water you use? It’s a variable one Ben considering with these plants. Almost always brown and crispy spots when I see one
I do belive that they do not like fertiliser. I've noticed on mine when I water it only with rain water the brown spots do not appear as soon as I add a bit of fertiliser the brown spots appear
Ah that's interesting, Sma - someone else said something similar. I have fertilised mine. I'll try the humidity test but if that doesn't give me an answer I'll try something with fertiliser too. 😃
@@Grow_Up_Man55 is worth the try. Mine sits in 60-80% humidity usually, but if is a hot day the humidity will go down to 30, which is not happening to often
I’ve just purchased a small one but it is developing those small brown crispy edges - I’ll try and add a picture for you. I have it in a south facing window out of direct light but would like to know what’s causing this.
Alas, YouTUbe comments doesn't allow images - more's the pity. Proper prima donna's these Trads. It seems everything causes browning from water to sun to humidity! Try bottom watering with RO or distilled water to see if that makes any difference - that's if we're ruling out direct sun or high humidity. I would also leave it to dry out before re-watering as they are closely related to succulents.
I’ve got brown spots on both of my plants. I have massive growth straight up from the three cutting I took from the mother plant, but the mother plant isn’t thriving as much. It’s been under a grow light while the cuttings were in the window. The difference is the window plant has far more brown spots. My office stays around 40% humidity and we get good light that’s not direct and I almost never lost. So it’s all a mystery!
@@Grow_Up_Man55 What then?! NOT fertilise? Or, fertilise? I started in June when I water it, every 2.5 to 3 weeks, I add Baby Bio to some water - which means I have to water from the top which shouldn’t be done in case you drip on the leaves, but I’m very careful - then, stand it in tap water, cannot get rainwater, to soak up what it requires, then drain it after an hour or so. So ‘brown leaves’? No, not leaves, but some spots on some leaves, but not enough for me to remove the leaves. It is ‘better’ looking Geoff than your new one you’ve shown us! But as you say, yours might be the previous brown spotted small leaves, just grown. And my plants leaves are giant! I wish we could put photos on here as my ‘mother’ was from 2 very tiny but well rooted cuttings in the teeniest of pots, I bought in Jan. Now, even after nipping out tips to root, it is big and growing sideways. And one stem-end to my delight, has got a little bunch of teeny pretty pink and white flowers. But why only one stem? I’m trying desperately to make it a trailing Nanouk. (Heaven knows what other species name comes after that ‘Nanouk’!). And I’ve found a way - sort of. An old holey silk pillowcase, I’ve taken off the stitched edges about quarter of an inch wide, and cut them to be about 9 inches long. Then I’ve draped them, only 2, over 2 end of stems of the plant and to weight it, I’ve got a line of clothes pegs clipped into one another’s ends! At first I tried garden string, but after an hour, found the tip on the floor as the string had cut right thru that thick fleshy stem! So then thought of the soft silk. Genius or not!! But I’ve now swapped the 2 silk pieces + pegs to other stems. And the 2 which were definitely hanging down to trail, their ends have turned up seeking the light!! It’s on a bathroom west facing windowsill so those trained stems were just below the edge of the windowsill, so I think they wanted more light. I don’t want it growing sideways from each leaf nodule, I want it to trail down, but that’s fighting against its nature.
@@margaretlavender9647 Sounds like you're doing just fine Margaret and experimenting like the rest of us! Everyone has different growing conditions, even if we lived next door we'd still have slightly different conditions. We can only observe and react to what's in front of us. Crossing fingers always helps too! 😀
Eventually I made an updated video on growing 'nanouk' where I combined and distilled all the info I know about growing it well. The link is here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Xe57mU8EWUc.html
Thank you so much. That was most helpful. I’m in Wales UK so similar environment to you! I have another question. Do you have a video explaining the difference between quadricolour and discolor? I would be interested to know. Thank you so much. Love your channel. Emma x
@Emma Morgan My pleasure! I don't have such a video - but I can point you to this website which should show the difference: tradescantia.uk/ (I have both and they look very different to each other. There is no pink in discolor - to me it looks 'dirty'!)
They don’t like wet feet. Let them dry out thoroughly between watering. What are you using for soil? Mine thrive on benign neglect. Don’t allow condensation on the leaves.
Yeah I agree with all that Tracey. This video is 18 months old and I've lived with learned as time has gone on. I would add that whatever you do, all Trads end up with bare, leggy stems at their base just because of the way they grow. We try to grow them in a pot with a single rooting point - they want to scramble, rooting as they go. My updated care video is here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Xe57mU8EWUc.html I'd be interested on your thoughts.
@@Grow_Up_Man55 Agreed, Geoff! My understanding of trads deepened when I learned that in the wild, they creep along the ground, each node putting down roots along the way. So I guess that’s what we need to mimic indoors, right? A large diameter but shallow posh pot where the can do what the do in nature! Enjoy your plants!
Hi hi!! I have a few nanouks (zone 7 - high humidity in the summer... sitting at 97% at the moment, 90+% for months). One had a lot of spotting. Trimmed it up. One on the front porch (full sun through early evening and nearly daily rain) got some spots - more than I like - but mostly looks good). One, bought from a nursery that kept it outside in dappled light, has only one spot. It’s been kept on the back porch (covered and screened in- soil watered from tap, bright indirect light - maybe the tiniest bit of direct morning light). None are perfect but I’m hoping to figure this out too!! I want to say my first one had no browning at all while it stayed in the kitchen window. (Nearish the dishwasher & over the sink - humidity - the window faces SW but has an overhang over it so no direct light.)
Hi Jennifer! Thanks for sharing your experiences with this plant. Sounds (mostly) like humidity might be the issue in your case too. Of course, other factors do come into it - for instance, those plants kept outside get more light and more ventilation so maybe are more able to cope with it. Just conjecture of course, but it's fun trying to get to the bottom of it. Something is causing it for sure - as many people don't have any brown marks at all. (The kitchen one - did you have central heating going while you had the plant there?)
Possibly - I'm about to do the experiment so I guess I'll know soon enough. The problem is that practically anything that can go wrong with a plant results in brown leaves! These are related to succulents though, so you would expect them to be able to withstand lack of water for quite a while under 'normal' conditions.
One possibility is that - much like Tradescantia zebrina - the species this comes from is a scrambler, rooting at nodes as it travels along the ground. We're denying it the opportunity to do this, so it simply can't sustain growth along a stem for long before leaves start to brown and die off. Tradescantia zebrina does exactly the same thing - and I've proven by growing it in a form that enables it to root along its stems, the dying leaves stops. Here's the video where I set this up: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-O2IwlfoatcY.html When I get around to it, I'll try something similar with nanouk varieties.
Put it in a clay pot - water VERY sparingly, give it consistent temps above 16°C. That should help. But inevitably, like all Tradescantia, the leaves will suffer at some point. In the wild they continually root from nodes, and we're not allowing that in a pot, so I think huge specimens of nanouk without any leaf issues are like unicorns! Good luck!
