Note: These are my opinions and experiences, I am no expert and I have not been paid or incentivised to share my thoughts and reviews of any sellers, products or people mentioned in this post.
Summary
Pilea peperomioides is a popular plant. I have heard it be called chinese money plant, and its leaves are like big round coins. To me the plant doesn’t look like it should stand up, as there are so many leaves on long stems but it works and is fun to look at. It is also a prolific grower and puts out baby plants that are called “pups” near its stem that you can remove and easily share with friends and family. There are more and more versions of this plant popping up, like mojito, sugar (like dusted with icing sugar) and white splash. I own the white splash version, but the care is the same. To see a comparison of the plants you can check this post out.
Quick Facts
Details
Family: Urticaceae.
Subfamily:
Genus: Pilea.
Cultivar: White Splash.
Botanical Name: Pilea peperomioides. Nickname: Chinese Money plant, pancake plant
Plant Care
Light: Will thrive in bright light. Avoid direct light causes leaves to curl. East or west facing window.
Watering: Water when top 5cm of soil are dry. Don’t overwater. Will droop when it needs water.
Humidity: Not fussy. Mine is at 50-55%.
Soil/Substrate: Well draining soil. Lots of issues come from over-watering.
Extra
Air Purifying? Yes
Toxic? Yes
Growth pattern: Grows as wide as tall. Maturity reached at around 12 inches.
Journal
I bought this plant from plnts.com as a baby plant and it came in good condition. I let it settle in before potting it up in some chunky well draining soil and then recently moved it to pon. I will talk about the reasons and the results in another post.
But for now it has done well. As it is winter it gets at least 12 hours of light from my grow lights and it has been living in my converted ikea glass cabinet which is acting like a greenhouse. It seems to love it. I did over water it early on and lost some leaves as a result. You can tell because suddenly a 2+ leaves will droop and go yellow with darker spots. I now let it dry out a bit and let the plant almost droop.
Apparently if you do really ell with this plant it will get pinkish flowers. I have never seen that before. Have you?
Propagation
This plant grows relatively fast and it will create offsets or pups that come up from the roots. These can then be separated on a regular basis and shared. I have not seen this myself yet, but I cannot wait to see my first baby offset plant. These baby plants can be potted up straight away but if you do damage the roots then using water propagation or any other method should mean that new roots are created.
Common Problems/Pests
While this plant doesn’t have a huge problem with pests in general, it can have problems with its foliage. I mentioned having yellow leaves with dark spots, which could be a variety of reasons but always check your watering habits first.
Curling and drooping leaves is caused by overwatering especially in soils that do not drain well. Browning and yellowing leaves at the bottom of the plant can be a nitrogen deficiency. But do remember that all plants will shed leaves eventually and it is not always because something is wrong. Leaves curling and forming a cup can be due to heat/light stress. Mine seems to be experiencing this at the moment and I moved it down further away from the grow lights. I’ll continue to monitor my leaves to see if this does the trick. Generally this plant will give you lots of hints if something wrong. The one thing not to worry about is seeing white dots underneath the leaves. I discovered that this plant has pronounced pores so these will show salt deposits and generally act like pores for water during photosynthesis.
Pilea peperomioides is a fast grower so remember to feed it once a month even in winter if you see growth.