Purple Queen replanted

This piece comes from the earlier pot I was working on. (Squirrel Foot Fern)

I took out a nice well developed roots. If you want to know whether the purple queen is doing well you will able to identify it by the roots. A thriving purple queen will have a thick juicy crawling roots. These roots can break easily within the soil if they are pulled out (when not handle gently)

So, in this case, I normally turn the pot upside down with the soil and break open the root bound and remove all the crawled up roots and free the locked soil, the roots however I use them as composite or just throw them away.

There is another set of roots that may appear from the leaf section or nodes, do not mistaken them for the major roots, they are just the tiny ones that happen to appear as they are in contact with water & soil.

If you place them on the ground, they will slowly crawl away from the original spot. I had mine planted on a pot and found none of them fixed firmly on the pot, rather they became long segments of leggy plants. This happens when they are not watered properly or the original spot is not their favourite thriving spot.




OK, what's happening here?
I had checked both of these two pots and found none of them had developed its roots like the first picture. (the think juicy roots) Infact, the whole plant is just at the surface and the right at the bottom, I found branch rot.

Some have developed short roots but they are just surviving. This happens when there is too much water and the soil too soggy. Also the leaves are slightly green and leggy when there is not enough sunlight.

Well, I had trimmed them and planted them in bunches of 4 - 5 plants in one hole. That way, the look short but bushy (just the way I like them) The lower leaves needed to be trimmed before placing them into the soil to avoid rotting.

There is another thing about the scientific name, I found that its refered also as Setcreasea purpurea or Setcreasea pallida. However, after checking some resources, I found out that its actually the same as Tradescantia pallida. There's not two different species but one.

Finally, my purple Queen. I guess this is not too obvious. I think I will take another picture after few weeks. I'm sure it would very pretty by then.