Last Updated on January 6, 2023 by a Friendly Gardener
If you love hanging plants or enjoy xeriscaping, you’ll enjoy adding the String of Coins plant to your collection. This beautiful plant, with its cascades of coin-shaped leaves, looks gorgeous when hung from the balcony or draped around fences, patios, and trellises.
But how easy is it to care for a String of Coins plant?
Luckily for all of us non-green-thumbed folks, caring for a String of Coins plant is actually quite simple, so there’s simply no reason to deter you from introducing the plant into your garden!
Here’s everything you need to know about the plant and caring for it.
About the String of Coins Plant
Scientifically known as Xerosicyos danguyi, the String of Coins plant also goes by silver dollar vine, silver dollar succulent, and penny plant, and belongs to the Cucurbitaceae family of gourds.
This evergreen liana’s standout feature is its beautiful, succulent, coin-like leaves that sport a gorgeous silvery-gray, gray-green, or blue-green color as they mature.
The leaves are about 1.6 inches in length and 1.4 inches in width, with a thickness of 0.25 inches. Fully grown plants can measure up to 6 feet in width and up to 16 feet in height, though a String of Coins plant grown outdoors doesn’t grow as aggressively as indoor ones.
The stems are thick, vine-like, and cylindrical, and the main stem will see a growth of a couple of feet before it sprouts branches.
The String of Coins plant is native to Madagascar.
Caring for String of Coins Plants
The following tips will help you care well for your String of Coins and help the plant reach its maximum growth.
Lighting Requirements
These plants flourish in full, direct sunlight, requiring at least six to eight hours of it each day (which is around how much they receive in their native tropical environment).
Since they love sunlight, these plants do well outdoors, where they can receive ample sunlight, whether full or partial, and the best part is that you don’t have to worry about the plant dying from all that heat and light—String of Coins plants are drought and heat resistant!
However, if you live in a region that doesn’t have such natural light and heat, you may need to grow the plant indoors and emulate the lighting conditions mentioned above. A south-facing window is a great spot for hanging the plant.
Watering Requirements
Given that these plants are drought and heat-resistant, they don’t need too much water to survive. Follow the watering pattern that you would for succulents, which is deeply watering the plant in the growing months (spring and summer) and only sparingly in the winter.
As a rule of thumb, let the soil dry completely between watering days.
Succulents are extremely sensitive to overwatering, especially when grown indoors and during the non-growing months. Root rot quickly sets in, in these plants, killing the roots and eventually, the plant.
Make sure the soil drains well and the pot has sufficient drainage holes.
Soil Requirements
The soil that your String of Coins will sit in needs to be highly permeable. Generally, cacti potting mix works perfectly fine for succulents too, so you can consider using cacti potting mix with a layer of gravel added for improved drainage.
You could also make your own mix by mixing equal parts of peat, perlite (or sand), and potting mix.
The pH level of the soil needs to be between 6 and 6.5.
Humidity Requirements
The String of Coins comes from an environment that mostly consists of bushland forests and sub-arid air. Therefore, a String of Coins plant needs only low to medium humidity for growth.
However, these plants do just as well with high humidity levels; if you live in an extremely humid area, you can balance the plant’s water needs by reducing watering. Likewise, if the humidity is low, you can mist the plant.
Temperature Requirements
A String of Coins plant needs temperatures between 65℉ and 85℉. As it turns out, this is the average room temperature. However, a String of Coins plant can also tolerate temperatures as high as 104℉ and as low as 25℉.
It is recommended that you bring your plant indoors, though, just to be on the safer side if frost hits.
Propagation
These plants can be propagated best through cuttings, planted during the spring growing season.
Using seeds is another tougher option since you’ll need to sow them once the last frost passes and consistently maintain temperatures around 70℉ and moist soil for the seeds to germinate.
Done right, you should see sprouts within two or three weeks. Many gardeners find seed propagation for String of Coins to be highly unreliable and instead prefer to use cuttings.
Leaf propagation is not possible for this particular variety.
Repotting
If you’re buying a new String of Coins plant in a pot, let it adjust to its new surroundings before you transplant it. Allow at least a month for this process to prevent the plant from getting shocked (yes, this is possible!).
For mature plants, repotting once every two years is sufficient unless the plant is root bound, i.e., the roots of the plant are growing through the pot’s drainage holes.
Repotting is best done in the spring growing season, and with each repotting, increase the pot width by three inches while ensuring that it’s deep enough to accommodate root growth.
First, lay out the fresh potting mix in the pot, place the plant in it, and then add the rest of your potting mix.
Don’t forget to add a drainage hole or two in the pot!
Wrapping Up
The great thing about String of Coins plants is that their hardiness makes them unsusceptible to most pests. The most you may have to suffer is an attack by scale insects.
However, root rot is a high risk, so always monitor how much water you’re giving your plant. Yellowing and/or drooping leaves are an indication of excess watering, in which case you should curb the watering and check the pot’s drainage holes.
Sometimes, you may also notice fungal growth on the leaves; you can remedy this by reducing the humidity levels and repotting the String of Coins in a fresh pot with fresh potting mix to prevent the infection from spreading.
That apart, String of Coins plant care is pretty straightforward, so go right ahead and bring that plant home!