PlantFiles: Chandelier Plant, Mother of Thousands
Kalanchoe delagoensis

I have to give this a negative for central Florida, despite the fact that it is "interesting" and blooms profusely in winter, even with little or no water. However, once it gets into a planting bed it is almost impossible for me to get rid of it, a few tiny plantlets seem to survive my weeding it out every time, and then they reproduce like crazy again. Throw it on the trash piles and it just keeps growing and flowering. Leaf width varies a lot, with plants in moist shade having wider, flat leaves and those in dry sand having the narrowest and most "tubular" leaves.

Here in central Florida (Keystone Heights), they seem to be holding their own. We have a few naturalized patches, the biggest being in a bamboo leaf litter area that gets morning sun. This is in a sandhill community; very sandy, fast-draining soil.

I have always had this plant as an oddity and share it with friends that show interest in them " kind of like bread starts :) ". Lived in cooler to now Washington type climates and never had the " too unruley " growth problems. I enjoyed them as a kid and was happy to find some up here. I'm greenhousing a number of the leaf attached babies for next spring. They need to be covered at least and housed up here, Don't get many spring survivors in the outdoor open garden.

This plant gets a lot of attention from visitors. It has not spread from it's original place, but it seems to be doing very well. We started a couple of broken off bits in pots for indoor pots, and they are doing OK. Not at all invasive here.

I live in "Central" Florida, about 75 miles north of St. Pete/Tampa and this plant was in an area next to the house divided by low bricks from the yard. Not in a true raised planter. It is against the house wall on the east side and gets the morning sun. There are a number of them and they began blooming around New Years day. We had a freeze five or six days ago, down to 24 degrees, so before it hit I went out and cut four of the umbles off with about a foot of the stem and put them in a vase with water in the house and they are still happily blooming. The ones left outside were damaged by the cold but the plant bases seems to have done fine. I don't think they can grow out into the yard because of frost. They survive the frost if they are under the roof line so I have no problem with them "invading" the yard They are absolutely gorgeous as a cut flower in a tall stemmed green vase.

I love these guys!!!
I actually got two different kinds of plants from the same clipping. The one I have that blooms, (I call it the "male"), doesn't have the little leaf-buds at all. Sometimes he has 1 baby at the very tip of his leaf, and the baby can grow as large as a regular plant just as it is. The other kind (I call the "female") has little leaf buds all around the leaves, and even some of the leafbuds get leafbuds! They never produce the stalk and flowers.
I have seen how easily they spread, but I just scoop them up and give them their own little pot. I have given these to many friends as gifts adn they seem to do great in almost any condition. The babies remind me of "Audrey 2" from Little Shop of Horrors, when they start to mature.
I am sorry some of you don't like them, I just love them dearly, and am looking at buying some of the other varieties.

I've never had a problem with this plant being invasive, but my back porch is a pretty severe environment and it's hard to take root in concrete. It's just a funky plant that sprawls around on the floor, five feet away from its pot.

In Australia, we call them "Mother of Millions", that's a much better name because there are so many of them. I reckon each one would produce at least a million plants.
They are a big problem in Queensland Australia, a Class 2 weed. I spend 2 hours in a group once a month just removing them all and I hate them. There's got to be a better way of extinguishing them than this. They compete with native grasses and are so feral species. I hate the person who decided to bring them from Madagascar to Australia!!!

"Mother of Thousands" is such an appropriate name for this plant. They grow everywhere, don't need dirt, they grow in orchid bark, between the leaves of bromeliads, in leaf litter on a cement patio, as well as in every pot within 50 feet of the plant. I don't know how they get there, either, but unwanted plants are easy to remove.

I put up with this mild nuisance because I like the umbels of trumpet-shaped flowers. They have to be fairly large to bloom, and a large potful of them in bloom can be spectacular. They don't freeze well, but seem to tolerate everything else.

What?? There's more than one of these stunningly prolific plants? It's a wonder we aren't drowning in the things... Nevertheless, I purposely brought it with me when we moved 30 miles. Not that I could have escaped it, but I do really enjoy its archetectural accents, its willingness to grow nearly anywhere, and the ease with which the babies can be pulled or scooped away where not wanted. These are very easy pot plants due to their drought tolerance, and in fact will grow in pretty deep shade without much trouble.

You have to love their versatility. Or at least, appreciate it!

You have two different species of plant under this name...K tubifolia is not the same plant as mother of thousands, though it has been called that, too. Both are weeds and once in your greenhouse will never, ever go away... they start to show up in every pot, and I'm not really sure how they get there... carried about by ants, maybe? Both are pretty marginal here in So Cal outdoors, but despite being melted to the ground by frosts, come back spring after spring in more and more places. Good thing they don't have nasty roots- they pull up out of the ground easily (though tubifolia is a lot easier to pull up than the larger daigramontiana (the name I learned of this plant).

My climate is Mediterranean; my specimen is 4-5 feet. After flowers expire, tiny new plants develop. Porous (free draining) soil - I use any of the cactus/succulent mixes that can be purchased at Home Depot or plant nurseries.

This species is extremely hardy in my area, invasive growing everywhere and in other potted plants. I have found that every part of this plant will root and grow new plants.

Due to intense vegetative reproduction, this plant rarely blooms. But when they do, tubular, relatively big orange flowers come from the top of the plant. Very beautiful, and very hard to see.

This plant reproduces via "plantlets" on the tops of the plants ... they fall into the dirt and grow from there. Not cold hardy in winter in most parts of the country. Also known as "Propeller Plant."