Gardening advice,wandering jew

[amalan11]

Last year around  this time I brought some striped wandering jew on ebay.I put it in a couple of pots and all the leaves died  and only the stems remained ,I thought I had done my money  as it looked dead.Come Spring it suddenly thrived and now I have several huge pots .

What im wondering is should it come undercover for the cold weather? Its looking so good im just wondering in inner Sydney will it die off anyway and just reappear in spring or did it just nearly die off because perhaps it is not happy in dew or something ( I think frost involves ice ,we dont get that but I think its dew we get ,all wet after dark)

If anyone has in the garden  id  be interested  to know if it dies off in cold weather 

Thanks

[lal-au0]

lantana is fine here. doesn't spread and doesn't die in summer if you don't water it.

[***super_nova***]

---

@i-need-a-martini wrote:

---

@polksaladallie wrote:

http://www2b.abc.net.au/tmb/Client/Message.aspx?b=72&m=10412&ps=50&dm=1&pd=2&am=10416

Discussion: Wandering Jew

---

That link is hilarious - s/he wanted to pull it out and put it in the compost bin. OMG!

---

When I pulled mine I placed it loosely in black garbage bags and put them in position where they received sun most of the day, thinking that couple of hot days and it will be cooked.   HAHA  On hot days I regularly opened the bags so the moisture can escape, and made sure that rain cannot get in.  It took the whole summer for it to kill most of the plants, but some bags I had to keep for the next year. 

So, if you see me screaming in horror, pouncing on something in my garden, and then digging frantically, you know there was a tiny Tradescantia sprouting.

The purple one might not be as vigorous in Melbourne, but is as bad further North.

[i-need-a-martini]

Yes I have done the same thing trying to kill it. Black plastic bag with no water sitting in the sun would kill every other knwn plant on earth - but not wandering jew! It's as if it likes conditions. I don't know what you can do with it.

Spraying doesn't work. Pulling out doesn't work. Boiling water doesn't work. Suffocating it under mulch doesn't work. 

You can't compost it. You can't chuck it in the bin.

It is the plant from hell.

[lloydslights · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately, the black plastic is like "home" for the succulent wandering jew helping it to retain the moisture.  

I find it's best just to throw it in the rubbish bin (not the green bin) for a deep burial at the tip. I do that with onion weed too.  I wouldn't like to have it go to the recycling green centre for someone to buy the mulch and spread around their vege patch

I've seen it die when laid out in the sun over an extended period - but why?  Just bin it.

To answer the original question on the potted purple leafed variety, it's because of its succulence that frost will freeze the "juiciness"

and therefore split the stem.  

DEB

[***super_nova***]

---

@i-need-a-martini wrote:

Yeah I am stunned that anyone would grow it as a decorative plant. Or that anyone manages to sell it. 

---

It makes a great indoors ornamental;  you can just put it in vase, change the water if it starts looking dirty, and now and then cut off the bottoms of the stems.  Perfect for those who manage to kill every potplant they ever get.  🙂

[bright.ton42]

I have managed to get rid of it by pulling it out at the roots .... never fails.  Then into a plastic bag and the rubbish bin.  You have to get all of it though.

Some varieties do make a pretty pot plant and seem very popular as such. 

[***super_nova***]

---

@bright.ton42 wrote:

I have managed to get rid of it by pulling it out at the roots .... never fails.  Then into a plastic bag and the rubbish bin.  You have to get all of it though.

---

I thought several times I picked up every tiny little fragment and then it started appearing again around the garden.  Suffocating it was succesful in the end.  I did not want to put it in the rubbish bin alive because I am sure it will grow in the tip.  It took a long time but it did not leave here until it was really dead 🙂

Still wonder where it came from...................

[bright.ton42]

No knowing where the wretched stuff comes from ......   it just appears from nowhere.  I'm lucky as I have a small courtyard not a big garden and I keep my eyes pealed because of the dogs mostly. 

[i-need-a-martini]

It spreads via the fruit. The birds eat it and poo it out somewhere else.

[***super_nova***]

I thought that they need boy plant and girl plant, and as luckily we only have one s e x in Australia they do not produce fertile seeds.