How do kalanchoe plants reproduce

Keep the plant warm and away from drafts. Do not water or feed the plant for 6 weeks, as it is dormant. As soon as you see flower buds, move the plant to brighter lighting and resume watering.

What to do with kalanchoe after flowering? Pinch back or deadhead flowers to encourage more blooms. After deadheading, give the plant a break and reduce watering. Most kalanchoes will re-bloom, usually during shorter days and longer nights, between fall and spring. Do Kalanchoe come back every year?

A deciduous perennial is a plant that loses foliage and goes dormant or semi-dormant during part of the year. The flower stems of Kalanchoe species die back at the end of their growth period, only to return again as the subsequent growing season begins. How often should I water Kalanchoe? The best rule of thumb for watering a kalanchoe is to stick your finger in the soil every few days. When the top 2 inches of soil is dry all the way dry, not just sort of dry , it's time to water.

Indoors, this will probably mean you'll only need to water every 2 or 3 weeks, but be sure to check regularly. Do kalanchoe rebloom? Here are some tips for getting your kalanchoe to bloom again: Flowering Depends on Light: Kalanchoes are photoperiodic, which means they bloom in response to the length of day. They naturally bloom in early spring. To force your plant to set flower buds requires six weeks of simulated winter lighting conditions.

What good is Kalanchoe? Kalanchoe pinnata has become naturalized in temperate regions of Asia and Hawaii. Many plants reproduce by throwing out long shoots or runners that can grow into new plants. But mother of thousands goes further: the plantlets are complete miniature plants that become disconnected from the mother plant's circulatory system and drop off, allowing them to spread rapidly and effectively.

The houseplant has lost the ability to make viable seeds and only reproduces through plantlets. Expression of STM in leaves was essential for making plantlets. In most plants LEC is expressed in seeds, but mother of thousands' version of the gene, LEC1, was expressed in leaves as well.

Try to dig up as much of the offset's root system as possible without disturbing the parent plant too much. You'll end up with a tiny version of the parent plant, roots and all, that's ready for repotting.

While rooted offsets take a bit of finagling to remove, those that are produced on the parent plant's leaves are much easier to gather. You can either wait until they fall for themselves, or give the plant a light shake to break loose any offsets that are ready to go.

Gather up these little pups leaf-borne offsets are typically much smaller than rooted offsets and remove them to their new home. The primary difference in planting leaf-borne versus rooted offsets is their size. Other than that, the process is essentially the same! Plant them in succulent mix and keep the soil slightly moist not wet! For tiny leaf-borne offsets, just set them on the surface of the soil rather than trying to bury their tiny roots.

They'll take it from there. Make sure you keep your new plants in a warm environment with lots of bright but diffuse light—direct sunlight can burn the leaves, but kalanchoe do best with lots of indirect light. Once you start to see signs that your new plants have rooted and are growing, you can start treating them like any other kalanchoe, including allowing the soil to dry out a bit between waterings and pruning and repotting as necessary. Propagation via cuttings is slightly more complicated than via offsets, but it's still well within your capabilities, even if you're new to the process!

The best plants to take cuttings from are healthy and thriving, without any pest infestations or disease, and which haven't bloomed yet for the season. Look for plants with large, vibrant leaves—remember, some varieties of kalanchoe will have shades of red or purple tingeing their leaves, but this is actually a sign of health.

Watch out for leaves that look bruised, yellow, or brown, as these might be symptoms of disease. Use sharp scissors or pruning shears, and apply rubbing alcohol or a dilute bleach solution to clean them between plants. This makes sure you don't accidentally spread diseases among your collection. Ideally, you should prune your plant twice— once after it blooms to remove flower stalks, and once in early spring, well before it blooms, to improve its shape. Flower stalks are not suitable for propagation, so discard those stems.

When you prune to shape your plant, work slowly, taking one stem at a time until you've achieved the desired effect. Clip right above a leaf or stem node. The plant will branch at that node and continue to grow. Meanwhile, trim the cut stems into lengths that include two to three leaves apiece. Each of these is a new cutting! While some succulents can be regrown just from leaves, many kalanchoe varieties require the stem for propagation, so don't cut it too short!

Aim for three to five inches. Cuttings need time to form a callus over the cut spot before you replant them. Leave them in bright, indirect light, until the cut end begins to look scarred over. This can take up to a week, so be patient. Waiting for the callus to form can help prevent disease from infecting your new cutting.