Finding A Pink Princess Philodendron

Over the course of the past couple of days, I got it in my head I “needed” a Pink Princess Philodendron. So my search began….I knew there was a better chance of me winning the lotto than finding one at any of my local nurseries, so I resorted to searching online. In doing so, I uncovered an underlying addiction to plant buying. I discovered quickly that it was going to be a nearly impossible feat in being able to find one under $200-$300. I looked into all the sources online and even found NEW apps to be able to buy plants from. YIKES, and did I ever find some plants. In my search and discovery of these new apps…I came across so many…(what it appeared to me) to be incredible deals of plants on my want list and plants I didn’t know were on my want list for exceptional prices. I say exceptional pricing lightly because they were still a lot of money for the rarer ones…but far less expensive than the going rate I was finding everywhere else.

Here take a look at EBay’s going rates…some over a GRAND! Because it’s so hot right now and nearly impossible to find a plant with stable variegation. Check out the current going listing that is for sale on Ebay here.

In my hunt for this impossible to find at a reasonable price plant…I uncovered the world of “reverted” Pink Princesses. Definition…or the idea of these…is that the pink splashes that this philodendron so popular are no longer dominant and become dormant or are lost altogether. Now there seems to be a big debate as to if the idea of once lost always lost is the case as I came across an entire feed of people that has seemed to take a reverted PPP and gotten it to throw splashes of Pink due to the specific conditions they place the plant in.

Here is the one I found that I’m very hopeful about…I don’t typically name my plants but I’ve already decided to name her Faith. These are the photos that were on the listing for her. I’ll be posting better ones as soon as she has arrived. From my understanding of the seller…this is a cutting of a PPP that did have a lot of color on it. This goes snipped off to help encourage new growth of the mother plant and keep the pink that is on the original plant. This is that piece…so this is me thinking oh there’s a possibility…and I want to try for it! To me, I’m up for the challenge and you know what…if this girl ever decides to pop some pink…you know how much MORE rewarding that will be. It will be a huge dose of endorphins! More so then the high I got looking and purchasing all my plants.

Here you can see the key elements that are needed in a reverted PPP to have a good chance of it being able to throw pink variegated leaves. Pink can be seen in the leaves and stem…although only in small amounts it is there! So that is the best sign…also in the new leaf it is puting out that still has green there’s no way of telling if there is pink on it until its completely formed from what I’ve been told…so we’ll see! I can’t wait to get this plant to get her all set up to patiently wait to see what each new leaf will bring.

The plan as of right now without seeing her is that I’ll let her throw out a couple more leaves before I clip her to try to instill new growth with pinks. I may wait up to 3 more new leaves before doing this…it will just depend on what types of leaves these new leaves will bring.

So wish me luck. I have good faith that I’ll do my best to get her to turn to the Pink Side. In order to do so, I have found that I need to give her plenty of light and humidity…well-drained soil and to be pruned depending on the status of her leaves. That pretty much wraps it up…treat her like a princess that she is. 🙂 I’ll make sure to update here and on my TikTok account.