Inherited 35+ -year old Rosary Plant... Help!

[vencheff]

I have recently inherited a living family heirloom and am concerned about my ability to properly care for it, especially since it resided for over 35 years in Michigan, USA and we have recently moved to Southern Florida, USA.

My mother passed away on Christmas Eve., 2005 and this was one of the last living rembrences to her of my grandmother, who passed away in the 70's. This plant survived being knocked over by EMT when my grandmother had her final and fatal heart attack, then survived months of neglect by my father after my mom died.

We drove from Michigan to Florida with this plant beneath my seat of our Penske moving truck, and I am trying my best to preserve this plant. I have verified it is the species "Ceropegia woodii" and therefore has been most forgiving to my cats knocking it down twice and in addition to being subjected to a torrential tropical rain (coming into the house - we still have alot to learn about Florida living).

Anyway, my questions are:

1. How do I take "cuttings" and get them to root -- from this plant, just in case...?

2. We have the air conditioning on much of the day in Florida now - it is very tropical here during the summer months. Would this plant prefer to be put outside, on the humid and shaded front porch?

3. My Belgium grandmother managed to bring it back to life and make it thrive after months of neglect from my father, but she is in Michigan and now I am left to carry on this legacy. My grandma has styrofoam worms mixed in with the soil. Is this a good thing?

4. My cats recently knocked over this plant (new house, new windows - I was so upset when this happened). Much of the dirt appeared to be unusable for repotting... rather than purchase bagged soil - (from which I have had bad insect experiences) I gathered some rich, black, moist soil from a farmer's field in the Florida Everglades - Belle Glade to be specific) and replanted the plant in that. Is this good soil to plant this in?

I would like to start "offspring" as this plant is so special to our family. What is the best way for me to do so, and how do I get the "beads" to grow large as they appear to be growing out of the soil at the top of the plant?

Thank you for your time.

Kind regards,
Valerie Encheff

[Marn]

first of all these plants are one of the prettiest off all ..
i was given some clippings from my sister in law and she put them in a zip loc baggie and i forgot about them on the counter for a few days and well low and behold they rooted .. there was some water in the baggie .. i had not had luck before trying to get them to root cause i really wanted a clipping of them .. so you could try that with a couple of stems and see if it works .. and also those balls that you are talking about are what they will root from so you could cut a couple of them off and try planting them ..also another way that people have rooted them is to hang another pot beside it and lay the ends on top of the dirt and wait till they root and then cut it off so you will have 2 plants.. that is the way most people have rooted them ..the zip loc baggie method was an ooops .. :) so if you have enough of hte plant you could try the three different methods to see what works best for you . i know they can be touchy plants .. and as far as the dirt im not sure .. i just used regular potting soil ..

good luck with this plant .. it is a pretty one ..

Marn

[Newt]

Hi Valerie,

Sorry to hear of your losses. What a wonderful legacy for you as well. A search at http://www.google.com/ with the name you gave offered over 27,000 sites. Great advice from Marn too. Here's a couple of sites about growing your string of hearts.
http://www.plantoftheweek.org/week098.shtml
http://toptropicals.com/cgi-bin/gard...ropegia_woodii

For indoor plants it's best to use sterilized potting soil.
Newt

[Ines]

Hello-

Fortunately these plants are easy! I think the touchiness some describe comes from overwatering. I have had one for a long time, it has lived through several moves and incidents with cats and bounces right back. However, whenever it has gotten knocked over or hopelessly tangled, I just get out the scissors and trim it to just a few inches from the soil, within a few months it is happily back to it's long self. Right now I have mine in a 10" pot on a high shelf and it hangs all the way down to the floor, about 6 feet! And it still is growing, I have to keep the bottom trimmed or it will just start piling up on the floor.

Let it dry before watering, not too long, just a day or so. This plant will not die if it goes to dry, so don't be afraid to let that happen- it would be worse to keep it too wet! All those little tubers turn to mush and its over!! Better to stay safe and keep it on the dry side. Keep it in as bright an area as you can, and propagate by using the tubers, as the stems grow the tubers will show up on them. I cut the stem just above the tuber and plant that into soil, then coil the rest of the stem in a circle on the surface of the soil. Do this with several cuttings depending on the size of the pot. The tuber and nodes of the cuttings (area where leaves are ) will root to the soil and then send up their own shoots and you will have another full pot.
Good luck!
Ines