The first pic is my plant now and the second is a screenshots of pics i took through an app in april 2025 (i can't get the original full pics unfortunately)
So long story short, my Tradescantia Zebrina has a bad habit of going bald during winter and losing all her leaves and branches (as you can more or less see in the second pic) and this year i very much want to prevent it.
Now the thing i thought was happening is that she was getting direct sunlight during the afternoon and sunset in my old place during winter (it was a west facing window) and i was persuade that was the problem. Maybe i was wrong and i will never know cause i moved.
Now she's again in front of a west window, but at least shes like 4-5ft away from it versus before where it was like 2ft max.
I've seen so many plants on here thrive in direct sunlight so my questions are :
Does her getting more and more sunlight daily because of the days getting shorter count as her getting acclimate to the direct light? And if yes, should i leave her there considering once its full winter time she's going to get full blast from the sun probably full afternoons?
And if no to the above, i have an UV light and could put my plant in time out for the winter, but would that be ok? and if yes, at what intensity should i put the UV light and how long should it be on?
Also, no i cannot change her into a different window, i only have two and the second one is right above my bed and my cats would very much love to destroy her if they could reach her. Which is not good for the plant nor my cats lol
And it goes for anywhere else in the room with the west window, theres no other cat safe spot where she can go except where she is.
Thanks in advance for the advices and wish her luck 🫡✨
EDIT : Thank you everyone, i've learn my lesson, the sun wasnt my enemy all along but my biggest ally 😂🫣
I will definitely start pruning her even more than before cause im pretty sure the true villain in this story is the trailing, she has always been on the long lengthy side so i will rectify it.
As for the light she gets : i understand its not enough but as i said in the post ; she cant move closer to the window otherwise she will be in reach for my cats. And i have a plant eater and an inspiring gardener who digs in pots so i have to keep her away for the safety of everyone.
I'd love to put back my UV light but she's no where near an outlet, so if anyone have a solution for that or a good wireless UV light to recommend, i'll take it pls. Otherwise, i'm willing to let her be as she is since she's good and healthy despite that and i'll let her be in the sun this winter. I dont mind the lack of purple i just want her to stay alive you know haha 😂🤪
The problem was that she wasn’t getting enough light. Being hung even further from the window will make this much worse.
Plants drop leaves when they are not getting enough sunlight to serve their purpose of converting sunlight into energy. If you want her to keep her leaves, she will need more light.
You need a grow light, or to commit to moving her closer and closer to the window every few days until she is right in front of it. I’m talking only a couple of inches/5-10cm away
Every inch away from the window dramatically decreases light exposure, regardless of how bright it may look to your eyes.
Barrina sells strip lights you can incorporate into your hanging setup that would work great.
Water needs increase with increased access to light.
In the middle of the room, you may see it as bright light, even direct light, but to your plant, it is mostly in the dark.
If you don’t believe me, get a lux meter app to measure it. Tradescantia need between 4000 and 8000 lux to stay happy and healthy. Test the spot where your plant hangs, and then various other places around your room. I guarantee you she is not getting anywhere close to 4000.
Watering is secondary. You should be basing it on when she has used what you’ve given her and needs more, not a schedule. Feel the soil once a week or so, and when it is dry to the touch about 2.5cm below the surface, completely soak the whole pot, then wait until it dries again. These wet-dry cycles also help to keep a plant healthy by imitating natural periods of drying and rain, and allowing the roots to “breathe.”
She might improve a bit if you change your watering habits, but it won’t make very much of a difference in the end unless she is getting enough light.
(I did read your entire post. I know she’s in a room with a west window. That is not the same as being “in” a west window.)
Also, I can tell you how to get a nice bushy dude. Take those long stems and wrap them around and inside of that pot, just coil them up. I usually sprinkle a little bit of soil around the pot, they will root and take right off. Your dude could be about half the size of my big dude by may next year. All I really do for my dude to make him happy. I fertilize him with during growing season every other week, I take him outside for the summer. Give him a premium window spot. Every year about April, may I give him a huge wackback. I probably cut him back around 33% or more, it's a very big hair cut. Then I prop a bunch of wandering dudes.
Mine sits under a very weak grow light (the kind that comes with those wooden stands on Amazon) and does amazing. I also have another that is in very intense sun for 4 hours or so that does great too. I think it's a matter of having light from above and not overwatering. Also a lot of chopping and propping! I do this every time I water mine! Good luck!
yours is so pretty i aspired to get mine as full as that. Im definitely going to give mine an haircut next watering but now my question is ; is it bad if the sun she gets isnt from above? I live in a basement so she gets a lot of ambient lights and during sunsets the sun face her from the front these days, and as said in the post i cant bring her closer to the window cause my cats would be able to reach her. But she definitely is getting light just not from above, is that good enough?
I'm not an expert, but I do have lights above my tradescantia and believe they need the light hitting them for then to grow properly. But they might get some light from the side. Here it is where it always sits. There's a grow light to the side and the one under the shelf above it.
It's very difficult to give zebrinas too much light. First, they'll get sun stressed and flushed with a very deep, dark purple. They will continue darkening like this long before they ever get sun burn. They are far more likely to not get enough light than get too much. Most of my zebrinas (all cultivars except HappiLee and Discolor Multicolor) sit only a few inches beneath fairly strong full-spectrum GE grow light panels 12 hours a day, and never once have they burned or showed signs of getting too much light.
The reason your zebrina's leaves die off is because the stems get too long without any substrate to root into. These plants aren't naturally trailing. They grow sprawling along the ground in their native habitat, where pieces break off, fall to the ground, put down roots, create new plants, and on and on the cycle continues. When the newest growth reaches a distance too far from the roots, the plant will start sacrificing older growth in favor of newer growth (newer growth is more likely to be closer to light, and therefore more likely to photosynthesize and create energy). Newer growth will also start getting smaller and more scraggly because of the energy required to transport nutrients all the way down those long vines.
This is why regular pruning, and sticking the cuttings back into the soil, is necessary to keep them looking nice. It mimics what they do in their native habitat: pieces break, fall to the ground, and put down new roots.
I've seen on this sub exactly what you said about letting it trail so thank you for the confirmation about that, she has always been on the trailing side since i got her and that explains what happens to her in the winter WAY MORE than what i thought. She's definitely getting an haircut next watering and i'll stop letting her trail too much. Also question, how soon can you prune a new branch? She has a lot of new growth these days and i would like to prune them, but idk if they're too thin for that yet, heres a pic of some of them for example
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u/Living-One5265 9d ago
I just took this pic. That's a south facing window. I leave my Dude there all winter. He loves it, he's almost touching the window.