This post shares my experience with scindapsus treubii moonlight propagation, both moonlight and dark form varieties! This slow-growing plant can be difficult to root, but I did it successfully with all of my cuttings! Plus tips on caring for scindapsus treubii once they are rooted and planted.
All about scindapsus treubii moonlight propagation, plus dark form rooting tips!
Hey guys, today I am sharing one of my first “rare” plant posts. I don’t have many rare plants because I am cheap as hell, but I also love a good scindapsus. Scindapsus pictus exotica and scindapsus pictus argyraeus are beautiful options that you can find in local nurseries, and occasionally even in big box stores. I have a scindapsus pictus care guide, and I love them.
But this post is about more rare scindapsus…scindapsus treubii moonlight and scindapsus treubii dark form. I got the treubii moonlight variety as an unrooted cutting for $10 off of Facebook. It’s beautiful, and it’s probably still my favorite scindapsus.
But when my friend Scott got his hands on a bunch of scindapsus treubii dark form—similar to the moonlight, but the leaves are almost black—I could not turn it down. He offered me two cuttings—both had some damaged leaves, but the stems had a ton of nodes. And you know what that means? Propagation! Let’s talk about both.
Scindapsus treubii moonlight propagation from a cutting
So first let’s talk about rooting a scindapsus treubii moonlight cutting. When I bought this cutting off of Facebook, it has just the slightest growth coming from a node. It was in sphagnum moss and perlite, so I just kept it there. I got the cutting in mid-summer 2020. I actually featured this plant in my post about how to root plants in sphagnum moss.
Some plants just root better in moss. This is one of those plants. Although I’ve rooted scindapsus pictus exotica in water, they do go through a bit of shock once you plant them in soil. Rooting in moss instead of water helps prevent that shock, so that’s what I’m doing with this one. $10 for a little cutting? I’m not killing this one!
The first leaf started sprouting several months later. This is a seriously slow grower. Before I got my greenhouse cabinet, I kept this cutting in moss with a plastic bag over the foliage to keep humidity up. Once I put the cutting in a greenhouse cabinet, I didn’t use the bag anymore since the humidity levels stay a bit higher in there anyway.
Rooting the moonlight cutting in moss
To keep this plant happy rooting in moss, I check the wetness of the moss every week or so. It retains a lot of moisture when the plastic bag is over the foliage. When it starts drying out, I simply spray the moss with plain water in a spray bottle to moisten in. I didn’t even use any rooting hormone on this one, and the roots began growing really nicely after a few months.
And then a few months over that, a tiny little leaf began sprouting. Yay! It took forever, I saw the roots growing, but no new foliage. So seeing a tiny leaf begin to grow was super motivating. And when it started getting bigger and actually unfurling? Amazing!
I am writing this post as of December 2020, about 6 months after getting the cutting. Since it’s winter here now, I’m planning to wait until spring 2021 to plant this in soil. I’m really hoping it takes off in the spring and summer with the additional warmth, light, and heat.
Rooting scindapsus treubii dark form cuttings
And now for rooting the scindapsus treubii dark form cuttings. You might be wondering how I found myself with some treubii dark form cuttings…and honestly, so am I! They are so expensive, but my friend Scott imported a bunch of cuttings from Southeast Asia.
Two of them were damaged, and he offered to send them to me. He knew I was hankering for some treubii dark form. Honestly, I don’t know how I can even thank him. They are beautiful. So good. And even though each of the two cuttings had a damaged leaf each, they weren’t without saving. And they had a ton of growth points.
So one of the cuttings had three leaves, the other one had two leaves. Both of the cuttings had a beautiful fully formed root system. So I decided to prune one leaf off of the 3-leaf cutting, ensuring I got a node. That left me one single-leaf cutting that needed to be rooted and two double-leaf cuttings that were fully rooted.
The single leaf that didn’t didn’t have any roots I put into a moist sphagnum moss that I used successfully for the treubii moonlight cutting. But I used rooting hormone on this cutting to give it a bit of oomph in rooting power. I now this damaged leaf doesn’t look so pretty, but eventually the node will root and sprout a beautiful new leaf and plant.
Planting the rooted scindapsus cuttings
The two remaining rooted cuttings were ready for soil after rooting in sphagnum moss and perlite for a while. Check out these roots! Gorgeous. So I dipped a bit of them in rooting hormone powder and planted them in a well-draining soil. Both of these plants have been planted for a few weeks now and have been living in the Ikea greenhouse cabinet, and it has been super happy.
I’ll update this post once I get a new leaf from either of my treubii dark form cuttings. I’m hoping to sell one next summer. And then I’m hoping to move mine outside for the summer next year. Since these plants love their humidity so much, the summer outdoors in the humid Maryland summer should be great!
Pin my tips about rooting scindapsus treubii moonlight and dark form!
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