Hello, I'm new to the forum and I joined hoping some of you veterans can give me some sound advice.

I'm a fairly new plant-owner but I went maybe a little overboard with my new hobby, in the last two months I have purchased Golden pothos, snake plant, fittonia, gold-dust dracaena, coral bells, peperomia, and a beautiful persian shield which I just put outdoors today.

But my question has to do with a lovely group planting. At least, I imagined it would be lovely but now I'm wondering if I made a mistake putting these plants together.

I planted a false aralia in a large bowl with a needlepoint english ivy, and some other type of ivy that I haven't identified yet (there was no ID spike in the pot) but it has lovely variegated leaves and is growing very fast!

I put these babies all together about two weeks ago. I envisioned the ivies growing over the edge of the bowl and accenting the vertical habit of the aralia. What is actually happening is that the english ivy is growing taller than I expected, it is about half the height of the aralia now, and the variegated ivy, instead of spilling over the bowl, is trying to climb the aralia. The good news is all plants appear to be very healthy and eager to grow.

Sorry so wordy! My questions are:

1. Can I train the ivy off the aralia and make it spill outward instead of upward. If so, how do I train it?

2. Would it be better for all of the plants to separate them? It's only been a couple of weeks, so I dont think their roots are too entertwined yet.

The group planting was maybe a bad idea for a beginner, but I got over-excited...any advice is greatly appreciated!! Thank you!! -Koren

Hi Koren,

Mixing different plant species together can be a problem unless they all have the same light and water requirements. If the "other ivy" is also a Hedera, then the three plants are probably compatible.

A potentially bigger problem is that you mentioned that they are in a bowl. If that means there is no drain hole then the risk of over watering and root rot is very high because excess water has no way to drain out.

Initially, ivy grows upward and toward the primary light source. As the vines get longer, gravity stars to take over and pull them downward and over the edge of the pot. However, you can certainly remove the vines from the Aralia and physically put them where you would like them to be. If you raise the plants up relative to the light, then they may stop growing upward initially.

Email me for a free copy of my article on Ivies.

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Will Creed
wcreed@HorticulturalHelp.com
My website