Kalanchoe Species, Chandelier Plant, Devil's Backbone, Mother of Millions, Mother of Thousands

On Jan 27, 2015, debylutz from San Diego, CA (Zone 10a) wrote:

It's not the prettiest succulent but its flowers are beautiful. I grow mine as a potted plant and have not found it to be invasive. Any stray plantlets I find in my other potted plants are easily removed.

On Sep 18, 2013, offshoredreams from Titusville, FL wrote:

I have to give this plant a positive rating due to its will to live! They do pop up everywhere and it amazes me how do they get there. I have always called them frog plants from when I was a kid. My grandmother had them. Maybe I called them that cause their leaves look like frog legs and now that im older I say its because they jump up everywhere. It truly is a maintenance free plant. Throw some plantlets on the ground and forget about them. If all plants were like this one gardening would be a breeze.

On Nov 24, 2012, bepah from Brentwood, CA (Zone 9b) wrote:

Just to add to the confusion, Kew has just assigned this plant to a new genus Bryopyllum delagoensis......the plant remains the same, however,....

On Mar 13, 2012, Anniesfollies from Carlsbad, CA (Zone 10b) wrote:

A friend gave me a piece of this plant several years ago and I've enjoyed it ever sense. It puts on such a spectacular flower show even from just a small 4" plant and it's just outside my kitchen window so I enjoy it daily when blooming. From the one small piece I have planted several other small pots but I find that not all of them bloom. I'd like to be able to tell which ones will and won't so I can toss the non-bloomers and plant up a few more of the bloomers for a better show each winter.
Yes it is invasive; I find new babies in the surrounding pots but they are easy to pull out and move to another pot or the trash. (Don't accidentally add this to a compost pile!) The pots are on a table over a cement patio, it gets limited water, and is in a mostly shady spot, all of which ... read moreseem to help keep it under control and the number of babies limited. I don't think I'd want to have it in the garden around open ground, or if I lived in a place with lots of rain.

On May 16, 2011, Plants4myPots from Palm Bay, FL (Zone 9b) wrote:

I "rescued" a couple little ones that were growing across a sandy rock last year, 'cuz I thought the speckled leaves/stems looked neat. Since then I found out they flowered, and have witnessed their profuse reproduction habits. As an exclusively container gardener, I've found this plant easy to contain for a few reasons... At first, it did spread itself to a couple of other containers, but they are easy to pull out, especially when repotting. Also, because I want to try to get a larger container full of mature plants that will flower spectacularly, I have been pulling the babies off the plants before they have a chance to fall off and just toss them all into one container. This seems to have been working well so far, and since I often want to "putter", but don't always have something ... read moreto do - keeping an eye on these plants satisfies that need. Babies do not form on the same stalk again, so once they are removed, plantlets only form on the new growth on top, which makes controlling this plant fairly easy. However, I only have four that I have allowed to mature at the moment - we will have to see if I change my tune when there is a much bigger potful...

On Jun 7, 2008, xyris from Sebring, FL (Zone 9b) wrote:

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.

On Sep 15, 2006, MaceB from Vancouver, WA wrote:

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.

On Jan 27, 2005, hspivey from Homosassa, FL wrote:

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 th... read moreem "invading" the yard They are absolutely gorgeous as a cut flower in a tall stemmed green vase.

On May 18, 2004, Kelli from L.A. (Canoga Park), CA (Zone 10a) wrote:

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.

On Oct 3, 2003, Vlynne from Long Beach, MS (Zone 8b) wrote:

"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.

On Jul 23, 2003, palmbob from Acton, CA (Zone 8b) wrote:

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).

This plant bounces back and forth from the genera Bryophyllum to Kalanchoe and back again... and it wi... read morell for years to come I am sure.

On Jul 20, 2003, Monocromatico from Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil (Zone 11) wrote:

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.