Wow, thanks for all those resources Sharpie Marker! Nick won't have 12 plants left much sooner now that I see how much cheaper he sells them for! It makes me mad when I see sellers pricing them at $125! I also got my plant from Nick in Vancouver back in Nov or Dec and I had one baby sprouting but it seems to have died or fallen off b/c I don't see it anymore. I hope more will come later. It's interesting that you use a chopstick to irrigate the soil. I've been wanting to try this but I'm scared of damaging the roots but maybe now I'll give it a go. My pilea certainly isn't doing as well as yours so I might as well try it!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BTTpOy2hADj/

Saw this yesterday. Thought it was worth posting. I had no idea they could get so big!

Coffeeplz thank you for nice comment!!

I belive I have the same gray pot you have for your pilea, I purchased mine at Home Depot. I found that when I put that plant in that pot it wasn't growing like the others in the terra-cotta pots. The pot in my picture is 6" but I also have another gray 4" pot with a cutting in it, that is very slow growing compared to the others I have. This is why I started with the terra-cotta pots. All the pileas I have seen online that are growing vigorously are in a terra-cotta pot and the gray pots are glazed inside. It might just be a coincidence, but I am going to stick with the terra-cotta non glazed pots for mine in the future. I also remember reading that they do not like "wet feet" hence my irrigation holes. I did find that once I made the hole in the bottom of that gray pot, the plant started to grow better for me. I used the chopstick once and did three holes in the top of the soil and one in the bottom so that the water could drain better from the gray pot. The terra-cotta pots absorb the water so I did not poke the soil in those. I do have to water them more compared to the gray pot. It might be worth a try for you, but I do not use a mixture of soil like you do either. Another reason these seem like they might be slow growing is because I like to look at them all the time and inspect them for growth- basically like watching water boil!!!! I was hesitant to keep the two in the jars, because of the "wet feet" possible condition, but they have been doing great so I am going to keep those in there until they are too big to fit. One other thing I remember reading along the way is that you shouldn't over pot when repotting them i.e. a 2" to a 6" pot.

Nat was very nice and I had a pleasant transaction with him. I figured for a few more dollars than Nat's, I would try those other sites and get multiple plants just in case I killed off the one from Nat. For the cheaper than the price you stated for eBay ones, I got 5 from Growing Concepts, including the two glass jars. I even asked if I could just buy the plant without the jars, and they were nice enough to throw the extra in my order instead- hence my freebies.

I did have an issue with lighting at one point before I placed the majority of mine in the west facing window and I purchased a grow light from amazon. The plants definitely started to grow towards the light, but then suddenly they started loosing leaves. Once that started to happen I stopped with the grow light altogether and tried the new location of the west window.

I am thinking because yours hasn't had too much/slow above ground growth, its possible that the plant is working on some offsets for you under the soil. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you ; )

What is Nick's contact info? I live in BC and have been dying to get one.

Also I just bought some pilea peperomioides seeds from eBay and can't find any tips on the Web for planting.... only about babies from the mum plant. Anyone ever had success with seeds?

the email address on the site is contact@stupidgardenplants.com and the web address is http://www.stupidgardenplants.com/plant-collecting/pilea-peperomioides you can click on the email link on the bottom of that page too.

*Correction to his name, it is Nat not Nick. My apologies Nat!!!

Thanks :) I ordered one I am soooo excited...

Sharpie Marker, thanks for your advice on the pots and chopsticks! Yes, I did get that grey pot at Home Depot! I actually just repotted into that pot so I don't think I'll be moving my Pilea again for a while. But I do want to try your chopstick trick! Question: when you poked the 3 holes on the top, how far away from the pilea's stem did you do it? I don't want to accidentally damage any roots. Also, did you poke the chopstick all the way to the bottom until you hit the pot's bottom? And for the hole you poked from the drainage hole, how far up did you go? Halfway?

Sorry for all the questions! I'm a plant newbie and the Pilea is my favorite so I want to make sure she thrives. Thanks in advance :)

Any thoughts as far as why these plants aren't more readily available in the US? As I understand it, they are pretty easy to grow, although they can be slow. And they can also be propagated without too much trouble through their basal offshoots.

Could one of the reasons why they are not so available be because it has been difficult to obtain seeds from the plants?

From the information I've found, most Pilea bear male flowers, and the female flowers do not appear a frequently. Perhaps the lack of female flowers on the plants makes it more difficult for seeds to form? Hence lack of seeds equating to inability for a nursery or grower to mass sow seedlings?

Would welcome further thoughts on this.

I'm including this cool vid I found of the Pilea in flower "smoking"!

http://bit.ly/2qfDQfl

I honestly don't understand why they are so hard to find. Every Nursery I have visited doesn't have a source to get them. Like I said I did buy some seeds and hope they are real and not bogus pilea.... I will take pics of progress. They are super hard to find in Canada .... and online the prices are super hefty. They are so cute and popular... not sure why nurseries here are not jumping on the bandwagon.

They're slow; they're brittle and break easily in shipping, and if handled roughly. The big nurseries don't see a profit in them.

Coffeeplz no problem! I knew that pot came from Home Depot, its a great looking pot! I saw someone on instagram have a pilea in the same pot too!

I poked the hole in the bottom about 1/4 of the way up from the bottom of the pot, because the way the soil was packed in there, I had bad drainage (again I use miracle grow potting soil). I would say enough to make sure when you water it, the excess water flows right out of the bottom. For the top, I just went in about a 2 inches from the stem on a diagonal towards the roots only about an inch and a half deep. I too was worried about damaging the rooting system. The plant showed progress from the holes and the newer location.

When I water my plants I pour the water until the water reaches the top of the rim of the pot and stop to avoid over watering. I do water frequently though, especially in the terra-cotta pots like I mentioned. The gray pot is still a great choice and mine is still in there, and I plan on keeping it in there for a while.

Hellounicorn.com no problem! Good luck with your new plant and your seeds!

I do agree that they are fragile and break easily when shipping. The one from Nat arrived perfectly, the ones from Araflora and Growing Concepts lost a few leaves. I think breakage is, for the most part, inevitable, especially when shipping to other countries. I will say though that the plants that had some damaged leaves, or had the most broken off leaves, are the ones that are now sprouting offshoots, and repairing themselves with continual growth on the original stem. I did notice that over the winter some of the plants had leaf loss of the bottom leaves. I have read others had that issue as well. The saving grace after that is the spring growing season though.

I was thinking of selling some on eBay to offset the cost I paid for mine, but I am hesitant because I know that shipping plants is a delicate process, and I am no expert in that. I would hate to send one and have it ruined in the process, and have the buyer not be happy. Not to mention the state to state regulations on what plants can ship where. I will say that the demand for them is high right now and the "inventory" is low, so that is clearly driving the hefty prices.

Please keep us posted on the seeds, hellounicorn. I'm curious, as I've yet to see any seeds offered for them. The only ones I've found have been on alibaba and I'm certain that those seeds are bogus. I have connections to growers with greenhouses. I know they could grow these guys if I could get them some seed. That would be one way to get these babies onto the market.

Ok I just ordered one from GardenCity / Stupid Garden Plants so fingers crossed it works out. Thank you so much for the info Sharpie Marker! That is super helpful- I didn't know who was legit and almost everywhere is sold out. I'm excited. This is my bday/ mothers day gift to myself.

I just got mine in the mail today ... I love it. N. At gardencityplants / stupid garden plants is amazing.... and 40 bucks including. Delivery is so very lovely.... since expedited shipping within Canada is like 15- 17 bucks .... and it was packed with love. :) I just potted it up.

Congratulations Hellounicorn.com!!! Wow that was fast shipping too huh? Nat does a great job shipping them. Mine arrived without any problems to the US. Extremely easy transaction all around.

Congrats and happy birthday/mothers day to you GreenDinos!

Looks nice and healthy, hellounicorn! Glad the leaves didn't get damaged in transit to you. That's a fun pot to plant it in, too!

Hello Everyone!! I received one from Germany but I'm so desperate to see it bigger... Mine traveled all the way to Puerto Rico, I don't know if I'm the 1st one here with a Pilea. I'm in love with this plant... every time I get home I keep staring at it, it's like that feeling you have for a pet! lol! :D Can someone is brave enough to send me a bigger Pilea to this tropical island?? pleaseeeee!!

So cute! What website did you find it?

Hi Nicole, if you are asking me I bought it from ebay, less than $15 including shipping. :)

Cool! I just started my search. Seems like it's gonna be a journey indeed. Saved the search on ebay, and now I must wait and hopefully get lucky!

The leafs are turning black, why??? ohh nooo :(

Can we see a picture Emineth? Don't despair. After repotting or being separated from the mother plant my piles have gone through quite dramatic shock and sometimes lost leaves. They've pulled through though.

If anyone wants the name of a seller in the UK, message me.

The U.K. and E.U. countries have no shortage of this. It is hard to find in North America.

It's bizarre to me that these are so hard to come by in North America. They propagate so readily! And I haven't found them slow-growing; I got mine about 10cm in diameter this time last year, had to repot it several times because it was compacting the soil and drying out rapidly, and started supplying well-established rooted offsets back to the shop where I work as a retail assistant. While we propagate them ourselves, we're also able to order them from nurseries in the Netherlands, when they're available.

They grow so fast I threw caution to the winds and am attempting leaf/petiole cutting propagation, following instructions from the book "House of Plants". I don't know if they'll take yet, but I'm eager to see.

I've also been experimenting seeing how I can impact the form of the plant. One I gave to my cousin stayed very low and compact on a South facing sill, while on my South facing sill they grew upright. She watered less than me. It seems burying more of the stem keeps the leaf growth compact too. I'm going to test this again once my current offsets are ready for propagation.

If anyone's curious, my current potting mix is roughly 2 parts rehydrated coconut coir, 1 part perlite, and a handful each of worm castings and sharp sand. I've seen them bounce back from being physically limp, drooping, and apparently sun-scorched.

I had a problem with aphids/green fly last year. They affected the formation of the leaves.I picked them off regularly, then eventually got fed up, blasted the plants with the hose, and left one outside for a few nights in the hope that something would come and eat the aphids. I'm keeping an eye out, but the aphids haven't reappeared yet the year. These seem like very tough, tolerant plants.

I have rooted some leaf cuttings too; waiting to see if they will ever make growths.

Hello!

I've recently acquired a pilea, it's my first one so I'm hoping I do everything right and that it doesn't die.

since this morning I've noticed a few small brown dots on 3 of the leaves. I think maybe something's been eating it?

anyone able to shed some light and some tips to help?

Big thank you!

You can actually buy this online from Etsy if you're in the US

https://www.etsy.com/shop/HousePlantsShop

I bought my pilea in April and it already had a couple of pups. I removed them when repotting and gifted one to my mother in law. The other one is growing fine and has started its own family :)

A week ago I repotted my mother plant to a bigger pot. It was already quite root bound. And now I have 10 pups rooting next to it. Very vigorous plant.

Here is the family. The one in the white pot is the matriarch and the one on her right is busy producing grandchildren ;)

They are in a north facing window, coolish temps, no direct sunlight.

Looking forward to gifting these away to family and friends. Cute plant.

Wow Belemnite! Wonderful! I got mine later in May, it had about 5 leaves and was smaller, and it has grown well, but nothing like this! Do you use fertilizer? Yours are beauties! I can't wait until I have some to give away as well!

Hm, my pilea seems to have stopped growing. The last new leaves I got are about 3 weeks old—one is fully emerged but still folded up and the other is only peeking its little head out. Do these plants go dormant? I haven't changed anything in terms of watering or sunlight so it's very mysterious. The good news is that it hasn't dropped any leaves, so that's a relief!

Hi GreenDinos

Thank you :-) She was rather well established when I bought it. That might have something to do with its growth?

I ahh fertilise when I remember it. Which is not that often. But I really ought to try and remember that. I read somewhere that once or twice a month during summertime would suffice, soo ;-) To be honest I have fertilised 3 times since I got her, and repotted her just as many times.

She is not growing as fast anymore, which might have to do with the more gritty mix she is in. The first two times I used coco coir mixed with some C&C soil and perlite. But to be honest, I have no idea. I just go with the flow and how she´s doing.

I am going to repot her one last time before autumn, back to the coir mix.

Crazy thing is, she is sending out pups through the drainage holes. All mixed up lol And I am curious as to see how many pups are hiding down there.

Good luck with yours! They are lovely plants. Flash a picture of yours. I´d like to see it :-)

@coffeepls Dormant. Never really thought of that. But now that I think about it, the temperature has dropped a few degrees in the room. And here I thought the only thing was the soil. We have central heating and I am not exactly looking forward to see how she´ll handle that. So maybe it´s good then that I plan to change the soil. Anyway. I don´t think it will go dormant per se, but maybe just slow down a bit.

I just want it to share with you how incredible this plants are. The package was lost and they survive for an entire month and 1 week inside a box, from Germany to Puerto Rico. They lost their big leaves but for my surprise there were tiny ones coming out. Just wow... I thought they were going to be dead!

Wow, very resilient. Congratulations Emineth. They grow so fast, so hopefully you will have some nice big leaves soon.

I repotted all of my little babies today. They smallest ones didn't have roots at all to begin with, but now they all needed bigger pots.

I really ought to start gifting them away. I'm running out of space.

Tomorrow I'll repot this one so I can get to her root shoots.

A little bit of of this and that · More Info

Hello Pilea-loving people!

I have read this thread head to toe, hoping that somebody would have a solution to my problem (?). Basically my plant became "shy" and curled some of it's top leafs like in the photo.

I am wondering what could be wrong and how to improve it :D

leaf curled in would potentially resulted in not enough air circulation in summer when it's too hot. not enough light in winter when it does not have enough light.

Hi all! Anyone willing to send a baby pilea my way? Pittsburgh, Pa! I'll pay for postage/packaging! Please let me know. Thank you!

I will have one soon that I’m happy to mail to PA! nellie.huggins@gmail.com

Love this thread! My mama pilea is about 18 months old and since about 9 months old has had NO shortage of pups! Many of her pups have pups at this point, and I'm running out of space for them. I don't want to give them away, though, until I know that all cuttings will continue to produce their own offspring (that's part of the fun in having a pilea!). Do all pilea cuttings eventually produce offspring? Only a few of my grand-babies have their own growths. I can be patient, but some of my larger babies don't have pups while smaller ones do...

I stumbled upon some 6" pileas in a small plant shop in NYC and bought one. It was doing so well and was so perky I have new leaves and I think new babies sprouting. I rarely over water my plants - I've been accused of under watering plants but I've been paying really close attention to this guy. The pot has a good drainage hole and I water it about once a week - or when it is very dry - at most every 5-6 days. It is in good in direct sunlight for most of the day. The bottom leaves have recently become really droopy - resting on the edge of the pot. The plant store people where I bought it aren't familiar with how to care for the plant so I'm trying to figure out what is going wrong. The soil is a regular miracle grow mix.... could be the issue? Can anyone recommend a better soil or tell me if they think I am over watering or under watering? Freaking out over here.

Hello! Ive been searching for a Pilea for a while and would be willing to trade or pay for postage. alexandramichellemoore How are your babies doing? P.S. for anyone looking for care info: Bloomandgrowradio podcast just did an episode on Pilea care. https://bloomandgrowradio.com/2018/02/13/pilea/

Hello there! I grow and sell Pilea Peperomioides and Watermelon Peperomia in the US only. If you are interested please email me at c.hoolihan@yahoo.com

thanks!!