Super shade-tolerant potted green plant, easy to root from cuttings, blooms in all four seasons, beautiful flowers and foliage, can be grown indoors too

Intro

Green potted plants are already a must-have decorative element in home life. Keeping some flowers and plants at home brings many benefits: they beautify the living space and also lift the mood and nurture the character. "Flower Sound Potted Plant Diary, Issue 1102" introduces you to one of the easiest indoor plants to grow.

Today's star

All things need sunlight to grow. Although many plants are shade-tolerant and can be kept indoors, they basically will not bloom and can only be grown for their leaves, such as pothos and spider plant. The flower introduced this time is called maozicao (Aeschynanthus), a new type of potted ornamental plant. It likes diffused light and is shade-tolerant, blooms continuously through all four seasons, is beautiful and easy to grow, and is well worth getting.

Maozicao (Aeschynanthus)

Maozicao is what we call it here. It gets its name because the leaves and flowers are covered with fine hairs. The leaves are ovate and opposite, slightly succulent, dark green on the surface and light green underneath. The branches and leaves are lush, and it stays evergreen all year round. It is itself an excellent foliage plant. The flowers of maozicao are very unusual: the red corolla extends out from within the dark red calyx, just like "lipstick" twisting out of a tube, so it is also called lipstick flower, lipstick hanging plant, and so on.

Unusual flower shape

In its natural state, maozicao generally blooms from spring to autumn. Grown indoors in a pot and given enough light, it can bloom in all four seasons, at irregular times, with a very long ornamental period. Its unusual flower shape, together with its bright green leaf color, red flowers paired with green leaves, makes it suitable for placing in the living room, or hanging on a balcony, where its decorative effect is excellent. It has not been introduced into China for long, yet it is already found across all provinces and cities.

It roots from cuttings

Maozicao has very strong vitality, strong reproductive capacity, and is easy to care for. Like succulents, it can be propagated from cuttings of branches, or by leaf cuttings (but growth is slow, so cuttings are generally used), with an extremely high survival rate. The specific steps are as follows: take a mature branch, keep 3-5 leaves, insert it into water to root, and in about 7-15 days it will root and can be transplanted. One large plant can be divided into many pots in a year.

Beautiful flowers and foliage

Maozicao is very shade-tolerant. In a fully indoor setting, it can also live very well, but if you want it to bloom, you still need to give it a moderate amount of light, and it must not be exposed to harsh sun. Morning light and evening light are best, and its light requirements are not high. The drawback is that it is not cold-tolerant. In China, only South China allows it to overwinter planted in the ground; in the north it can only be grown indoors as a potted ornamental. In winter, kept indoors with heating or sufficient light, it will still bloom. It is well worth having.