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Special Tips for Taking Care of Variegated Plants
Written by Kelsey W.
Do you own any variegated plants? You might have no idea what this word refers to or know if you actually have any variegated plants in your home, as it’s not a term that gets used very often outside of the gardening world.
However, if you own a variegated plant, you should be aware of some special care recommendations that will keep these plants happy in your home and around your house.
A variegated plant is one where the leaves have more than one color on each leaf or stem. You might see a leaf with some areas of dark green punctuated by yellow dots or white lines, or the difference in colors might be more extreme, with some parts of the leaves appearing dark green with other parts appearing completely pink or yellow.
These leaves often create a very interesting look for the plant, and they’re often the result of random genetic mutations. Frequently, variegated plants are valuable or more expensive to purchase than their non-variegated relatives, so taking care of them becomes even more important when you decide to bring one home.
Variegated plants aren’t particularly difficult to care for, but you’ll have a much easier time encouraging them to thrive in your home when you follow these simple recommendations for care.
Do Variegated Plants Need Special Watering?
In most cases, you’ll need to water a variegated plant slightly less often than a similar plant without variegated leaves. Since a variegated plant will have less chlorophyll in its leaves, it will grow more slowly, and it won’t usually need as much water.
If you have two similar plants with one having variegated leaves and the other having solid leaves, you can add a few days of time before watering the variegated plant. For example, if you water the solid plant every 10 days, the variegated plant will probably fare well with a 12-day watering schedule.
It’s important to watch out for soggy soil with your variegated plants. They’re slightly more vulnerable to root rot than their solid cousins, so it’s important to make sure their soil drains well and that the water you give the plant doesn’t flood the area for too long.
Different Lighting Needs of Variegated Plants
A variegated plant is best placed in an area with bright indirect light so the green parts of the plant’s leaves get a healthy level of sunlight, but the lighter areas aren’t burned by direct sunlight.
One of the difficulties in finding the right spot for a variegated plant is that it’s important to give it enough light because it has fewer areas of green where it can make food, but the light it’s given can’t be too bright because the lighter spots on the plant are vulnerable.
Not only can too much light cause the plant stress because the light portions of the leaves have no innate protection against sunlight, but giving the plant too little light can also cause the plant to turn completely green and lose its variegated leaves because the plant is so focused on efficiency and making food.
Proper Feeding Strategies for Variegated Plants
A variegated plant has different fertilizing needs than a non-variegated plant, just like it has different sunlight requirements. One of the most important parts of keeping a variegated plant happy is making sure it has enough food but also making sure not to overwhelm it with too much nitrogen.
The reason you don’t want to give your variegated plant a fertilizer high in nitrogen is that nitrogen boosts chlorophyll production, which can lead to a loss of the variegated leaves over time. You certainly don’t want to starve your plant of fertilizer, but you have to go easy with it each time you feed it.
The simplest way to fertilize a variegated plant is to simply dilute the fertilizer solution to half-strength. The plant will still get its nutrients, but you won’t have any issues dealing with unexpected variegation loss. You can also purchase a low-nitrogen fertilizer from your garden supply shop.
In the winter, you can often stop fertilizing your variegated plants entirely as their feeding needs will plummet. Some plants may even enter a stage of dormancy where they don’t grow at all until the spring. You don’t need to break out the fertilizer again until well into the springtime.
Keeping Your Plant Variegated
One interesting thing that can happen to your variegated plants is that they can eventually lose their variegated appearance if too many non-variegated leaves grow in and start to replace the variegated leaves. Even if a plant is entirely variegated, it may grow some non-variegated leaves over time.
With enough growth, a variegated plant can become wholly solid, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing unless you’re interested in maintaining the neat appearance of the variegated plant. In such cases, you’ll want to have your pruning shears at the ready to cut back growth whenever you see a leaf that’s particularly solid.
You don’t need to cut back everything on the plant so there’s nothing growing on it; you simply need to keep an eye on the plant and make quick cuts whenever you see a small leaf growing in that’s lacking the variegated pattern.
Tip: Your variegated plant can also lose color when it’s stressed, which can eventually doom the plant because it won’t have any green on it, which is essential for chlorophyll production, which is the process by which plants turn sunlight and water into food.
If your plant starts losing more green than you think is healthy, it might need a little extra sunlight, so you might want to move it a little closer to a window while still keeping it out of direct sunlight to protect the light-colored leaves.
What Kinds of Plants Can You Get Variegated?
A few of the most common types of plants that you’ll see variegated include pothos and philodendron (often mistaken for one another as their leaves are quite similar), monstera plants, arrowhead plants, and Chinese evergreens. All of these plants are easily grown inside in Southern California as houseplants, so you can fully control their environment and ensure their variegation remains intact.
If you’re looking for garden plants with variegated leaves, you can usually find variegated hostas, but these plants are shade-loving (which isn’t surprising for a plant that can have variegated leaves), so you need to have some shade on your lawn to support them.
It’s Tough to Propagate Variegated Plants
One difficult part of growing variegated plants is that it’s difficult to take a cutting from a variegated plant and grow another plant that looks exactly the same. You never know when all the new leaves that start growing on a new plant will just come in fully green, and you’ll lose the variegation.
Don’t Be Afraid of Trying a Variegated Plant
While it’s true that variegated plants need some special care to grow well and thrive, it’s not so much that their care is difficult as much as it’s different from plants that don’t have variegated leaves. If you see a beautiful variegated plant at your garden center and think it would look beautiful in your home, don’t shy away from bringing it home because you’re concerned about keeping it alive.
At the very worst, you might not get the sunlight or feeding exactly right, and you might lose some of the variegation. However, it’s actually possible to bring back and maintain the variegation as long as it doesn’t go away entirely. A leaf or two that’s not variegated doesn’t spell absolute doom for your plant.
If you’re at all interested in growing a variegated plant, start with something small and easy, like a pothos, which won’t mind at all if you occasionally pluck off one of its leaves when it grows in plain.
Get to Growing with a Visit to Green Thumb Nursery
Green Thumb Nursery has all the information you need about growing plants, especially when they’re an interesting, variegated kind that might need some special care in your home. If you have questions about a plant in your home and need some help with growing recommendations, or you’re looking for a unique variegated plant to add to your house, visit one of the Southern California locations of Green Thumb Nursery for some ideas.
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