Houseplant to Collect: Cocoon Plant, Senecio haworthii

The new year is well underway, but spring is still months away. The bleak winter weather has me craving something, absolutely anything, green! 

This seems to happen to me every winter. About this time last year, I bought a whole bunch of cute little succulents and did up a mini terrarium. 

Making up the terrarium was fun and it made me see the attraction of these popular plants. They're so easy going! Miss the occasional watering and its no big deal.

Perhaps that explains why, on my most recent nursery visit, I made a beeline for the table of succulent plants. What I came home with, however, wasn't green at all!

Isn't this the strangest looking plant? If you didn't know better, you'd think it was fake.

Senecio haworthii or Wooly Senecio is a dwarf shrub native to South Africa, so it has travelled a long way to come here to North America.

In its native habitat, it can be found on rocky mountain slopes where it grows to about foot tall (30 cm). Potted up as an indoor plant in my home, it is a mere six inches tall.

The long, tubular, succulent leaves resemble a moth's cocoon (hence the common name) and are covered in fine, silvery-white hairs.

Here are some basic tips on caring for a Cocoon Plant:

Light: Senecio haworthii needs full sun (4-6 hours of sun) or its growth will become leggy.

Water sparingly! These are drought tolerant plants that are used to extremely dry conditions. To avoid overwatering, allow the soil to dry out completely between waterings. When you do water, try to avoid getting water on the leaves. In the winter, the plant's growth slows considerably, so water very sparingly.

Soil: Cocoon Plants like sandy, free-draining soil. They'll rot in damp, soggy soil. To re-pot my plant, I used Miracle-Gro Cactus, but there are a number of other brands with soil mixes for cactus and succulents.

Care: Plants are best divided and re-potted early in the spring when they move into a phase of active growth. Senecio haworthii are quite happy to spend their summers outdoors but should be brought back into the house well before the first fall frost.

Fertilizer: Because the sandy soil Senecio haworthii prefers is low in nutrients, apply a fertilizer (labelled for cactus and succulent use) just once a year in the spring. Too much fertilizer can cause leggy growth.

This little fellow looks ready to propagate!

Propagation: The best time to start new plants from cuttings is in the spring when the plant is growing actively. Allow your cuttings to callous and dry for two or three days and then root them in sandy, free-draining soil.

Pests: Scale and mealy bugs will occasionally affect a Senecio haworthii, but generally they are pest free.

It brightened my mood considerably to pot up my new Senecio haworthii with a few other succulents. Now if only spring could come a little sooner...

Have a great weekend!

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