My Tradescantia Collection

I inherited a couple of Tradescantia many years ago. I was taken by their appearance and quick growth. I looked out for them in garden centres and tried to work out their names from gardening books. The naming on them was confusing with many names for the same plant. I then discovered them for sale on eBay and my collection grew. I started to do more research and discovered that Tradescantia are actually a genus of 85 species in the family Commelinaceae.

I started collecting plants from other genera. Tradescantia are generally very easy to grow and I would recommend them as a fairly easy house plant. Conversely, some of the other genera contain some tricky plants. I have built up several contacts with other collectors over the years, and together we swap plants and help try and identify the plants correctly. At the last count I had over 130 plants in my collection.

The Commelinaceae family is a huge family and I’m constantly looking to increase my collection

further. These plants have given me a huge amount of pleasure over the years and I’ve enjoyed getting to know other collectors and enthusiasts.