Paddle Plant Makes A Beautiful, Easy Care Houseplant
I have a patch of Paddle Plants (aka Red Pancakes, Flapjack Plant and Desert Cabbage) growing in my front garden, but did you know they an interesting yet easy houseplant? Yup, it’s true. I bought this plant direct from the grower right here in Santa Barbara 8 years ago as Kalanchoe thrysifolia but now they say on their website it’s actually Kalanchoe luciae. This happens in the world of plants, but regardless of the botanic name, this plant is 1 to consider if you have bright light and can practice restraint with the liquid love.
here’s that red edging on those scalloped leaves which makes this plant so desirable – you need lots of light to bring it out
Some Of Our General Houseplant Guides For Your Reference:
- Guide To Watering Indoor Plants
- Beginner’s Guide To Repotting Plants
- 3 Ways To Successfully Fertilize Indoor Plants
- How to Clean Houseplants
- Winter Houseplant Care Guide
- Plant Humidity: How I Increase Humidity For Houseplants
- Buying Houseplants: 14 Tips For Indoor Gardening Newbies
- 11 Pet-Friendly Houseplants
Find out lots more here:
Here’s my paddle plant patch in the front garden which provides me with lots of cuttings. The 1 that you see in these pics and the video is taken from there. As an experiment, it has lives half of the year inside and half of the year outside.
This is the 411 on taking care of them indoors:
Light:
As bright as possible, near a west or south window, but not in it. It’ll burn up against the glass or in the window.
Water:
As I said, be stingy – overwatering will rot this plant out in no time. Wait until the soil has almost completely dried out until you water it again. And with all houseplants, water less in the winter.
Temperature:
As I always say, if your house is comfortable to you, it’ll be comfortable to your plants. And because this is a succulent, the dry air won’t bother it at all.
Fertilizer:
Once a year is just fine, preferably in spring . You can use whatever organic fertilizer you use on your other houseplants like Organics RX.
Pests:
Mealybugs are what you have too look out for followed by aphids. You can find out more about these pests & how to control them in my book Keep Your Houseplants Alive.
This Kalanchoe luciae will grow slowly indoors, but if you’re patient, it’s definitely worth the wait. If you travel a lot this plant is a good choice because of its low water and care needs. No need to fuss over this gem of a plant. Have any of you grown the Paddle Plant (aka Red Pancakes, Flapjack Plant, Desert Cabbage) as a houseplant?
when those babies (or pups) get big enough you can remove them if you’d like to propagate more plants
here’s my patch – as you can see, outdoors they happily clump & spread
In case you’re interested, here are a couple of how to’s I did on propagating & planting your cuttings:
Planting Succulent Cuttings
This post may contain affiliate links, you can read our policies here.
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
Nell, the founder of Joy Us garden, was born into a gardening family and grew up in Connecticut’s countryside. After living in Boston, New York, San Francisco, & Santa Barbara, she now calls the Arizona desert home. She studied horticulture & garden design, working in the field all her life. Nell is a gardener, designer, blogger, Youtube creator, & author. She’s been gardening for a very long time & wants to share what she’s learned with you.
Hi Court – Pups should form on the base &/or the stalk of the mother plant. You can leave it & plant the propagated part back in. Yes, I always let paddle plants callus for at least 2-3 weeks before planting.I’m just about to prune mine so that post should b up next month. Nell
Hello! I have a how to plant that is very slow growing. Used to be in very bright light but I moved to a home that has a Northwest facing window. It doesn’t have any red, but it’s very healthy and it seems to be doing well. I want to put it outside so it can get brighter light, but it only gets to about 50 degrees at night here and 45 right now during the day. Is that too low of a temperature to put it outside to get some direct light for half an hour?
Hi Wendy – My Paddle Plants grow outside here in Tucson where the evening temps in winter dip into the low 30’s. They can take temps down to 25-30 so yours will be fine. Nell
Hi! I have a paddle plant that is growing pups on the bottom just like your top photo on this post. I was wondering how large I should let the pups get before removing them from the mother plant? Tha
Hi Nell I have a giant paddle plant that is creating new ones like crazy. The “pups” are the size of dessert plates now do you think it would be safe to split them off and replant? If so, how would you recommend and where should I cut? The stems are about the diameter of a quarter
Hi Chelsea – I usually let them grow to 4-5″ before removing. I’m posting this afternoon on Paddle Plant propagation by cuttings – you might want to check that out! Nell
Hi Mila – Spring is a great time to propagate. Take them as close to the stem as possible. I just did a post on pruning mine: https://www.joyusgarden.com/paddle-plant-propagation/ Nell
Hi! I have a paddle plant and purchased it a few months ago. It looks much worse now, all the leaves are curling downward. One top lead is drying up and all leaves have brown spots on them. How can I save this?
I dropped a small paddle plant and broke a few of the leaves in half. What do I do to help it overcome this disaster? Or should I just start over? I am really sad it fell. I am moving to the Tucson area soon and bought this to get started understanding succulents. It was doing very well.
Hi Erin – I’m not sure what the cause is but perhaps sunburn, too wet, lack of light, edema or scale. If any part of the plant looks like it can be propagated by stem cuttings, I’d start another plant. Here’s a post on that: https://www.joyusgarden.com/paddle-plant-propagation/ Nell