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Mother of Thousands (Kalanchoe)

This succulent plant is easily recognized by its spade-shaped leaves with legions of plantlets waiting to be deployed growing along their edges—the plant kingdom’s invasion force. If you acquired this plant in a pot, do not plant it outdoors, as it is highly invasive in tropical and subtropical regions.

Survival strategy

If you relegate this plant to a low-light area (less than 200 foot-candles), you’ll end up with small leaves that don’t produce plantlets, which is the main attraction for kalanchoe. Give it as much sky light and sunlight as you can, and you’ll get a good showing of plantlets!

Growth strategy

200 foot-candles or more will yield some growth. Give this plant some direct sun and it will live up to its name—well, realistically, maybe just mother of hundreds.

Soil management

With good light, you can water a mother of thousands plant whenever the soil has reached complete dryness. I haven’t seen the need to aerate the soil much—an invader’s roots are accustomed to poor soil!

Subjective life span

A mother of thousands plant doesn’t lend itself to being a “prized specimen” type of plant, due to the sheer volume of plantlets. If you put just one plantlet into its own pot with good cactus soil and give it a sunny location, it will grow to a satisfactory size with many plant-lets within a year. As the years go on, the older leaves curl up and drop off the stem, leaving a mess of plantlets growing beneath it to fend for themselves. So the nature of owning a kalanchoe is cyclical—from plantlet, to adult, to propagation of new plantlets.