Episode 67, part five: Peperomia prostrata

On The Ledge

Jane Perrone

Houseplants, Leisure, Gardening, Home & Garden, Plants

4.8 • 773 Ratings

🗓️ 5 October 2018

⏱️ 6 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As the Latin name suggests, in its native Brazil this tiny Peperomia grows by creeping around on the ground and along tree bark. That said, it grows brilliantly as a trailing pot plant, and is so diminutive that it’s perfect for keeping ‘on the ledge’. It’s a member of the pepper family, so you may seen this sold as ‘trailing pepper plant’.

If you squint you might mistake it for string of hearts, and the stems are equally as wiry, but the leaves are fleshier and rounder - some compare the shape and variegation to a turtle’s back!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's mini episode five of On the Ledge's Trailing Plants Week.
0:18.5	I'm Jane Perrone and we're here to look at one of the most
0:21.6	tintsy-weensy little trailing plants you can find. It's Peperomia prostrata.
0:28.2	Even the weakest student of botanical Latin may be wondering why this plant is featuring for
0:33.2	trailing plants week because of course prostrata means growing along the ground. In other words,
0:39.3	prostrate and of course in its native climate in Brazil. That's exactly how this plant grows,
0:44.9	creeping around and rooting wherever it can. But us house plant growers, well, we like to push
0:51.4	the boundaries and do things a little bit differently, and it has to be said,
0:54.9	this plant does make a wonderful specimen for a hanging basket or high up on a shelf trailing down.
1:01.5	I wanted to include this pepperomia because it really is a plant you can grow on the ledge.
1:07.3	It's very diminutive. The leaves are only about a centimetre across, and it will grow in a pretty small pot. So it really is the ledge. It's very diminutive. The leaves are only about a centimetre across and it will grow in a
1:12.7	pretty small pot. So it really is the perfect plant for the person with limited space. If you squint your
1:18.7	eyes, you might be able to get it confused with serapagia woody eye, one of our earlier plants,
1:23.5	because it does have a similar look, but the leaves are a lot more fleshy in the way that
1:28.2	pepperomias tend to be. Having said that, the pepperomia genus is enormous. There are hundreds of
1:34.1	species in it and there can be very, very variable. So don't assume that every pepperomia looks
1:39.9	exactly like this. I have heard the little variegated leaves being described as looking like a turtle's
1:46.0	back, but I think that's something you'll have to judge for yourself. Now we always like to think that we are
1:51.4	the first to catch on to these exciting new plants, whereas in fact they've been around for donkeys years
1:57.4	and pepperomia prostorata is no different. Via the very useful website
2:02.4	pepperomia.net I found a wonderful entry. I think it was from the gardener's chronicle in about
2:08.9	1880 something and it describes pepperoma prostrator in this way. A pretty slender growing plant
	...

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