How to Care for Tradescantia Nanouk

The Tradescantia Nanouk is a very popular and colourful cultivar of the Tradescantia albiflora or Tradescantia fluminensis. It is a patented plant bred in the Netherlands in 2012. If it had its way it would be everywhere.

What’s in a name?

The Tradescantia or Spiderwort is a genus which has numerous species of perennials in North and South America. The trailing species have become very popular house plants and include Tradescantia zebrina and Tradescantia fluminensis syn. Tradescantia albiflora.

The trailing Tradescantias have undergone a rebranding to among other names: “Inch plant” and “Wondering dude”, the last of which does not seem to have really taken off.

The former popular name “Wandering Jew” (WJ) became associated with a sad and sorry legend which dates back to 1602. The story took on anti-Semitic associations used in Nazi propaganda, and now with sensitivity, and pledges to address roots of discrimination, the name (WJ) is out.

It is always best to use the actual nomenclature for plants. Many of the same plants have the different common names depending on where you are in the world.

The classification names identify the ancestry and familial traits, and was first introduced by Carl Linnaeus, his system has been the go to, with updates since the eighteenth century. The first name in this system refers to the genus and plant family.

So you have a plant that looks like the one in the photos. Is it a Bubblegum, Pink, Nanouk, or lilac? It is all of these so follow the same care instructions. For some clarity on the features of this plant see the explanation at Chic planting.

Tradescantia nanouk is bred to be compact, showy, and vigorous. I can tell you that it will get leggy very quickly if not pruned. If this is the look you want then you do not have to do anything. If you do prune the plant you will be increasing its lifespan via the cuttings you remove as they will sprout roots quickly if started in water.

Care for Tradescantia Nanouk

It is one of the those plants that just does its thing. You make sure you don’t drown it with water, and provide enough light to keep its glorious colour.

It will show you when it is unhappy by brown spots and dropping off the main plant.

Mist for humidity, or I use small jars filled with tap water around the plants. Doing this allows the chemicals in the water to settle and be used for watering the plants the next day without causing damage.

Indirect bright light is best for this plant. It will tan unhappily in direct sun.

Propagation

There are two ways to propagate this plant and both are easy: water or soil. Place a cutting in a jar of water. I find brown glass jars speed the process up. Once the roots are a few inches in water transplant to soil mix with good drainage. I find a good potting soil with a small amount of perlite encourages a strong growth.

This is a plant that keeps on giving. It grows quickly with trailing rooting stems so you can probably set up a propagation station to give plants away as gifts.

Invader

There is a reason Tradescantia is called “Cucaracha” in the Dominican Republic and Cuba, (see the problem with common names), it will take over in the outdoors.

It is classed as an invasive plant. This means it prevents the growth of other plants. In the Pacific areas this has been caused by it being dump garden trash, or it breaking off from a mother plant.

Be mindful of your location and check if this plant is classed and invasive in your area. I have heard people get excited when they threw out this plant and found it growing in the garden. This plant wants to be everywhere. It may seem like a great ground cover until you and your neighbours can’t get rid of it.

Be mindful, and keep it indoors in high risk spaces for invasion.

Ongoing colour

People are drawn to this plant for the eye catching beautiful foliage, and ground cover use. The leaves are a glossy variegated pink, lilac, green, and cream with purple undersides. It also produces tiny white flowers. This is a plant which heightens the colour spectrum when placed amongst green foliage plants.

Do you have a Tradescantia nanouk? Let us know in the comments what you enjoy about this plant?