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October 28, 2010

Watermelon Peperomia

The Great Outdoors hosted the monthly meeting of The Garden Club of Austin and were gracious enough to offer 20% off to members, so I bought a few things.  One was a Watermelon Peperomia which is a plant I've been wanting for over a year now.  It's so cool.  It really looks like a watermelon.  Just compare the leaf to the watermelons in this post (which also offers an interesting recipe).


According to the Aggie Horticulture website, the flower looks like a rat tail which might be kinda funny.  Rats in the watermelon field and what not.

Peperomias generally make wonderful houseplants and don't require a lot of fuss.  I have one other peperomia which I just about killed, but I suspect it was being fertilized heavily until I got it.  I don't fertilize much at all, like practically never, so it suffered.  I took cuttings of what remaining bits still looked healthy, and they've rooted and started putting on some nice new growth.  Hopefully, it will continue to do well now that it's on the program.  I'm hoping for better with this one, but just to be sure, I might repot it in one of my more typical mixtures.

Or maybe I'll start propagating like crazy and hope for the best.

I guess it's not toxic to dogs and cats, but I think my dogs and cats would be toxic to the plant which is why I have a difficult time with houseplants unless they're in terrariums, hanging baskets, or a room where the animals don't have access to them.  Even then there's always a risk when keeping plants inside.  I wonder if peperomia would do well in a terrarium given fast draining soil.

That's all for tonight.  I'll have to take pictures of the rest tomorrow when there's daylight to be had.

1 comment:

  1. Hi!
    I have one that did so well for quite some time then one day the plant decided to pull a big fuss. Perhaps due to too much water during cloudy days. I planted watermelon peperomia all over again a few months ago with a division. The plant loves really bright indirect light and warm spot. Not too humid. Well draining soil is good.
    Good luck!

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