The Pilea Peperomioides. And why we will have too many.

Photograph: @nininoes Instagram

I've been walking around with some thoughts about the Pilea. Was going to post about it on my Instagram account, but it would be way too long of a caption.
So here goes. Back to the old blog. If you don't have a lot of time, let me start with the conclusion.

I think we will have an exuberant amount of Pilea plants to deal with in the near future.
More than we can ever give away, or know what to do with.

First of all, I love the Pilea Peperomioides.
Its gorgeous perfectly round leafs, in combination with the strong lines of the stems.
And baby's. Mature Pilea plants are very easy to propagate. If you take good care of them, and it's not very difficult to keep a Pilea happy, they will shoot up babies like they're giving away free diapers at the corner store.

You only have to look at a few plant loving Instagram feeds, and you'll notice the Pilea is a hit. It has been on trend for awhile now, and it doesn't look like it's going away soon.
The Pilea Peperomioides used to be very hard to come by. People referred to it as the pass-it-on-plant. You had to know someone, who knew someone, who lived next door to someone with the magic key. Someone with a Pilea plant who liked you enough to give you one of the babies.
There were no stores selling them, because there were no distributors distributing them.
Now that I'm thinking about that, that must come down to money. Everything comes down to money. If you are in the business of selling plants, you want to keep selling plants. You don't want to sell one plant, which then easily turns itself into an unlimited stream of new plants.

Photograph: @pine.and.birch Instagram

I love the Pilea. The Pancake Plant, or UFO plant. Also knows as the Chinese Money Plant. Many plant lovers are excited to get their hands on one. We take photos of our plants and share them on Instagram. The love spreads.
So now all of a sudden there's this great demand for this obscure plant.
People who have one start selling the offspring on sites like Ebay and Etsy for ridiculously high amounts.

I recently moved back from the United States to the Netherlands. Over here the chain stores are really quick to pick up on trends.
So I wished I had this great story of how I got my plant. But all I did was walk into the garden center, and purchased one. A small, but mature Pilea with two babies already popping up.
It wasn't long for those had grown to the point I could remove them from the mother plant, and put them in their own little planters. Soon I found myself carefully examining the soil all the time, looking for new babies to come up. Currently there are five new babies starting to grow.
It feels slightly addictive.
But now what? For two, three, maybe four I could find new plant-mama's, to give them to. But not everyone is waiting around to get a plant. I do realize not everybody is as enthusiastic about plants as I am.
But then what to do with all the babies? I am not looking in to going into the plant selling or shipping business.
A few days ago I came across a photo of an amazing giant Pilea plant. I felt immediate #pileagoals. Studying that photo i noticed that this plant consisted of multiple main stems.
Light bulb moment. You don't HAVE to remove the babies. You CAN also leave a few to grow together.

Photograph: @mittgronajag Instagram

So that will slow down the Pilea wave in my house a little bit. But what about all those other beautiful Pilea plants, all those little Pilea babies out there?

If you have a Pilea Peperomioides plant, what do you do with all the babies?


A few notes on the photos.
That wonderful Pilea plantgang on the @nininoes Instagram account is heaven.
I want to have all of them in my house.
The babies from @pine.and.birch are looking perfect.
I need more terra cotta pots.
@mittgronajag, what can I say? You're Pilea got insta-famous in a second. I completely understand why. I can't stop looking at it.