How to Make Your Watermelon Peperomia Bushy

Share this post:

Watermelon Peperomia is a delightful plant that can bring warmth to any room with its silver-green striped foliage.

However, if your Peperomia has leggy leaves instead of that full bushy look, it’s time to act.

Learning the reason behind the dullness of your plant is the first step to making it bushier. In most cases, the reason is lack of light exposure.

Let’s figure out how to make Watermelon Peperomia bushy once again!

How Can You Make Watermelon Peperomia Bushy?

While low-light exposure is the most common cause of droopy Peperomia leaves, it could also require pruning.

Expose Your Watermelon Peperomia to Enough Light

Watermelon Peperomia leaves start to get leggy if they’re not receiving enough light. In search of light, the plant would stretch out, and the leaves would drop.

To get a Peperomia fuller, you should expose it to more light. It needs five hours daily of indirect, filtered sunlight.

It’s best to not expose your plant to direct sunlight because it might burn the leaf tips.

Ideally, you can place the Peperomia near east-facing indoor spots. Windows that catch western light in the late noon sunshine will work, too.

If you’re growing it outside, make sure to shelter it against the sun’s scorching rays.

Prune the Dead Parts

There are also other solutions to opt for to help a Peperomia grow bushier. You can simply prune the dead leaves to help bring in new growth.

Trimming your plant might be essential to maintain its look, enhance its growth rate, and keep it moisturized.

Avoid leaving scars as they take forever to heal. Using a razor-sharp shear to cut the dead parts is the way to go here.

Additionally, it’s better to prune your Peperomia in spring or early summer as the plant can heal better during its growing season.

Alternatively, you can go for a faster (and more radical) solution and propagate your plant by leaf-cutting it to get a bushier look.

How to Propagate a Watermelon Peperomia

Propagating might give you a clean slate with a new daughter plant if all else fails. Just make sure you do the cut right, regardless of the method you go for.

Here’s how:

The First Method: Stem Cutting

1. Use a sharp knife to cut a healthy leaf with about a half-inch of the stem
2. To stimulate vegetative growth, place the cut in a rooting hormone
3. Leave the cut in a small container with shallow water or damp soil
4. Expose it to bright, filtered sunlight
5. After four to six weeks, new roots will sprout
6. Expect to see the full-sized foliage after six months

The Second Method: Leaf-Cutting

1. Cut off a healthy leaf horizontally into two halves
2. Leave the cutting on a paper towel to form calluses
3. Plant the cut ends into a planter with soil (you can opt for water only)
4. Wrap it with a plastic cover to keep the soil moist until the roots develop
5. Roots should appear within six weeks
6. If you cultivated these cuttings in water, transfer them into new pots filled with soil

Extra Tips to Keep Your Watermelon Peperomia Healthy

Light deprivation isn’t the only thing to fear while raising a Watermelon Peperomia, though.

To help a Watermelon Peperomia stay vibrant, you need to provide it with certain requirements of light, soil, water, and temperature. They’re not picky, but they do need a bit of care!

Choose a Nutrient Soil Mix

It’s best to grow your Watermelon Peperomia in a potting mix of organic matter like peat moss and inorganic matter, such as gravel or perlite.

Organic matter will provide your plant with needed nutrients and retain moisture without becoming too soggy. Remember that extra moisture encourages root rot!

To provide your Peperomia with the perfect well-drained soil blend, add two parts peat and one part perlite or gravel.

You’ll also need to keep the soil rich in nutrients. Use an all-purpose diluted fertilizer every month or so.

Set a Watering Schedule

Watering can be a critical issue for the survival of your plant. This is because excessive watering can cause root rot.

Yet, withering and drooping foliage are both signs of drought.

It’s best to maintain a moderate watering for the Watermelon Peperomia most of the year. Just make sure the top layer of the soil dries out before going at it again.

However, it’s better to reduce the frequency of watering during winter as the plant might go into dormancy.

Crank Up the Humidity

While average humidity is suitable for Watermelon Peperomia, it can take up some high water content in the air. After all, it’s a tropical plant!

In its natural habitat, it grows surrounded by other plants. This is usually a sign of high humidity tolerance.

Its perfect humidity level is between 40-50%. If your room is dry, try misting the planter regularly.

Maintain a Moderate Temperature

For the temperature, Watermelon Peperomia thrives in temperatures between 60-85°F. Yet, it can take temperatures up to 100°F.

However, it’ll barely survive in extreme heat, and that’s not what we’re looking for here.

Instead, you’ll want to keep the conditions as close as possible to their ideal range. You’ll also need to protect it from gusts of air.

That’s why they won’t work best for windows and entrances.

Keep the Pests Away

Watermelon Peperomia isn’t susceptible to a lot of disease or insect concerns. Its most common problems come from poor conditions such as low humidity, waterlogged soil, or little light.

However, in the case of spider mites, mealybugs, and whiteflies, you can use a mild pesticide, like neam oil, to combat them.

Final Thoughts

So, how do you make a Watermelon Peperomia bushy?

The easy answer is to give it more sun time and prune it. However, if that doesn’t work, try propagating it.

Overall, the Peperomia is an easy-to-please plant that doesn’t require much maintenance. With the right amount of water, light, and humidity, it’ll fill your place with a fresh and vibrant look.

Remember that to fully enjoy a consistently bushy Watermelon Peperomia, moderation is key!

Share this post: