Moss Rose Aquarium Garden

Moss Rose’s scientific name is Purslane; it is also known as the 10 o clock plant.

It’s a small pretty plant that likes direct sunlight and makes a nice addition to any garden.

Let’s see if it can grow in my aquarium gardens.

Stems of the Moss Rose are fragile and easy for me to break with my fingers.

I take cuttings with different numbers of stems.

Some cuttings come with a flower bud.

I made cuttings about 7–8 cm long.

This one already lost a flower, but there are more to come.

Let’s remove the bottom leaves from stems.

Leaves of many land plants rot in water.

We can make this stem a bit shorter.

And so I remove bottom leaves from all stems.

Here you can see them all prepared.

I put all cuttings in one aquarium garden with snails on July 18th, 2020.

Only the bottom parts of the stems stay in the water.

I like to take time lapse recording of flowers.

That’s where you can see all their beauty!

The Moss Rose responds to water nicely — you can see all stems rise.

The flower buds get swollen quickly.

And flowers start blooming.

That happens really quickly!

Look at this magic :)

It is about 8 am now on July 19th in New York.

Moss Rose another common name 10 o clock plant comes from a fact that the flowers of this plant usually fully open at 10 am.

That’s close enough given the circumstances — the cuttings bloom in the water.

And there is another interesting thing happening…

It took less than 24 hours for the roots to start growing on some of the cuttings!

Here you can see the roots.

The blooms wilted on the same day at about 3 pm.

So, the bloom lasted less than 24 hours.

Well, I have more cuttings with flowers.

Here you can see them blooming the next morning on July 20th.

And by the evening of the same day they are all done.

Another flower blooms two days later on July 22nd.

Pretty white roots have grown noticeably.

July 24th.

Another couple days went by.

The parts of the stems that are submerged in water start curling up.

In the following week, I move Moss Rose stems to my other aquarium gardens.

The Moss Rose has small delicate roots about 5 -7 cm long.

The bottom parts of all stems are curled up, pulling the roots out of water.

The plants cannot survive with roots pulled out of water for too long.

That is a problem I encounter trying to grow the Moss Rose in aquariums.

Moss Rose plants bloom in New York even in late Fall.

Here you can see flower buds on plants growing on the street and ready to bloom on November 3rd.

And there is another blooming plant that I have a video about — it is the Violet.

Both plants are small sized beauties :)

November 3rd, 2020

This cutting of Moss Rose has been growing in my aquarium garden for about 4 months.

The stems grow longer.

The plant lost almost all roots.

And leaves start wilting — you can see they are getting yellowish.

I am going to keep it for as long as it lives.

Pretty flowers of Moss Rose make a nice seasonal addition to my aquarium gardens.

Have fun and happy aquarium gardens :)