We took several cuttings from a pelargonium with pretty variegated leaves and planted them in various places in our garden. All the cuttings took well, but most have plain green leaves only, though one or two have a faint pattern.
What caused the variegation to be lost, and can we get it back again?
variegated leaves
cuttings took
have a faint
again?
Are they growing in the same light levels as where they came from? Sometimes a change in light level will reduce the variegated patterns in a leaf. Usually, I _think_, it is lower levels that do this. Other environmental factors may also cause it. Variegation is usually as "sport" and doesn't have the strong genetic backing that "just plain green" has, so it doesn't take much of an environmental change to affect it. Try to duplicate the original environment.
Otherwise????
Jim Lewis - snipped-for-privacy@nettally.com - Tallahassee, FL - Only where people have learned to appreciate and cherish the landscape and its living cover will they treat it with the care and respect it should have - Paul Bigelow Sears.
Come to think of it, the plainer ones are in a gloomy spot and the better patterned ones are in more light. The original plant grew against a brick wall facing the rising sun, and I will try moving some of the cuttings to a similar aspect.
Regards.
Sometimes temperature triggers changes. Variegated plants can revert back too.
This reminds me of the famous Coleus that grew under the fluorescent lights in the office where I worked. It was startling brilliant, almost translucent, green. People were so impressed they used to take cuttings to strike. Most had fair success but always came back to complain that the new plant that had grown from the cutting (which was in a bright sun-facing window or out in their garden) was amazingly coloured with red and pink and nothing like the parent!
David
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