Quantcast
Caring for Inch Plants, Tradescantia zebrina, Wandering Jew | The Old Farmer's Almanac

Order Your Almanac Today!

Inch Plants

Photo Credit
Junrong/Shutterstock
Botanical Name
Tradescantia spp.
Plant Type
Houseplant
Sun Exposure
Part Sun
Soil pH
Neutral
Bloom Time
Summer
Flower Color
Blue
Purple
White
Hardiness Zone
9
10
11
No content available.

How to Care for Inch Plants (Tradescantia)

Print Friendly and PDF

Tradescantia zebrina or inch plant is a type of spiderwort known for its attractive purple- and silver-striped foliage. This houseplant knows how to survive any indoor environment and perfect for the wanna-be-green thumb! Here’s how to care for an inch plant in your home.

About Tradescantia or Inch Plant

Tradescantia zebrina (pronounced trad-es-KAN-tee-uh zeb-REE-nuh), formerly Zebrina pendula, is a species of creeping plant in the Tradescantia genus. Common names include inch plant and wandering Jew. The latter name is controversial, and some now use the alternative wandering dude. Another common name is Variegated Spiderwort.

While Tradescantia zebrina is a perennial plant in its native Mexico, its treated as a houseplant in North America, and commonly grown in a hanging pot. It is considered invasive species in warm regions outside of their home ranges (including in parts of the southeastern U.S.). For this reason, we recommend growing inch plants indoors or keeping them restricted to containers outdoors. 

Not only does the inch plant have attractive leaves but it’s fast-growing, with trailing stems. Leaf nodes on the stem are supposed to be 1-inch apart, hence the common name inch plant.  Each segment is capable of producing a new plant so Tradescantia is easily started from cuttings which root readily in moist soil. 

Photo credit: Maja Dumat, CC BY 4.0.
Planting
  • Grow in all-purpose indoor potting mix in either a pot or hanging basket. 
  • Select a location with filtered sun. Keep inch plants out of direct sunlight and out of dark areas, which will cause them to become leggy.
  • The room temperature should be average (between 55° and 75°F).
Growing
  • Water deeply, but allow the soil to dry partially before watering again. This plant doesn’t like to dry out, but it also doesn’t like to be constantly wet.
  • Water less during the winter months, which is the plant’s resting period.
  • Provide fertilizer twice a month in the spring and summer; don’t fertilize in fall and winter.
  • Pinch back to keep this trailing plant contained as well as promoting bushier foliage.  
  • Removed leggy growth also allows for cuttings that can be used for propagation. 
  • Plants can be pruned back hard every spring and can be taken outside on a protected patio in the summer.
Recommended Varieties
  • Tradescantia zebrina â€˜Tricolor’ (pictured at the top of this page) has beautiful purple and green leaves with shiny silver stripes. 
  • Tradescantia pallida ‘Purple Heart’ has fuzzy, purple foliage.
  • Tradescantia fluminensis ‘Quicksilver’ has variegated white-green foliage.
Harvesting
  • Inch plants can easily be propagated by cuttings. Snip off a piece of the plant (the cutting should ideally be 3–4 inches long) and place the cut end in water. In about a week (or less), the cutting should produce roots. A week or so after that, plant the cutting in a pot according to the planting guidelines above.
Pests/Diseases
  • No serious insect or disease problems.
  • Aphids tend to be a problem on the stems and leaves. Monitor for aphids (and other small insects) as they could become an issue if unchecked. To get rid of them, pinch off the infected stems and spray the plant with water.
  • Root rot and stem rot can occur in soggy soil.  
  • Note that contact with plant sap causes skin irritations in some individuals.
Houseplants

More Like This

Gardening Calendar

Comments

Mr. Paul Schultz (not verified)

1 year 2 months ago

A good article on the care of the wandering Jew plant. Although, I would like to add, that the branches of this plant are extremely tender. And you can break them off, just buy a glance. So I would caution anyone, to handle them with care. Once it's established as a full-sized plant, it's a more little hardy. But, as a young cutting. Those stems are very tender.

chriswinters (not verified)

10 months 3 weeks ago

Just because something has "always been this way" or you're old is not a good reason to continue. We constantly learn and evolve our language. The National Gardening Association (NGA) and a number of professional horticulturalists have acknowledges this. Unless you're a plant person or Jewish, I'm not sure you would know. I'm glad the Almanac's forward thinking and not anti-semitic; it may take a few years for regular people in plant stores to catch up. As someone else said here, "Just because you find something inoffensive doesn't make it so."

The genus Tradescantia commemorates John Tradescant the Elder (1570s-1638). Massively famous and significant. An extraordinary plant hunter and master gardener who began his career as head gardener to Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury ... gardener to the royal favourite George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham ... Keeper of his Majesty's King Charles I's Gardens, Vines, and Silkworms ... the Oxford Physic Garden. His royal patrons sent him all over to collect for their gardens and greenhouses -- the Low Countries, Arctic Russia, the Levant/North Africa. With his son, maintained their own garden and museum in South Lambeth, known as the Tradescants' Ark -- the first public museum in Britain. The common house plant under discussion here was sent to him by a friend in Virginia (it is indigenous to Mexico); another friend sent the scarlet runner bean from the West Indies. His son, John Tradescant the Younger, was also a traveller (mostly to North America), plant hunter, master gardener. Their huge museum collection went to Elias Ashmole and became the foundation of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. This link lists some of the 750 species they brought to England: https://people.elmbridgehundred.org.uk/biographies/john-tradescant/ They were just as famous for the numerous "rarities" in their large museum of the world, among which is one of the few specimens of the extinct dodo. Their travels explain the "Wandering" part of the houseplant's name. Were they Jewish? If they were Jewish in 17thC England, it would likely have been a private matter. Casual research turns up nothing certain, only this suggestion from a 1638 visit: "The Christian world is also indebted unto that painful industrious searcher and lover of all nature’s variety for the late knowledge of the spiderwort..." -- though that might only signify collection from nonChristian territories. (You can find the whole letter here: https://thejunket.org/2015/01/issue-thirteen/tradeskin/.) But I would like to think they were.

Indeed (not verified)

10 months 3 weeks ago

"some PC nonsense... forced on the public" and "a perfectly good name and there's nothing offensive about it"

The name refers alternatively to the legend that a Jew mocked Jesus on the way to the cross and was forced to wander the Earth until the apocalypse or to the supposed itinerant, rootless nature of Jews. There are centuries of stereotypes built around these myths. Please consider that the world is larger than what you know. Just because you find something inoffensive doesn't make it so.

Thank you for the information you provided about the name “Wondering Jew” I did not know this..was very interesting. I was just going to post on social media about my plants didn’t know the correct name I didn’t want to offend anyone reading this put my mind to ease. Again thank so much for your comment.