---
title: Trailing watermelon in a terrarium | Glass Jar Garden
description: Trailing watermelon (Pellionia repens): Silver-marbled leaves on fast creeping stems. Cut it back in small jars. Needs light 1,000 to 8,000 lux, humidity 60...
url: https://glassjar.garden/guide/plants/pellionia-repens/
---

Plants

# Trailing watermelon
Pellionia repens

Beginner · Fine in a closed jar

Silver-marbled leaves on fast creeping stems. Cut it back in small jars.

## What the simulation uses

- Light: 1,000 to 8,000 lux (The brightness it grows well in.)

- Humidity: 60 to 95 % RH (Air moisture it is happy in; below the lower end it dries out.)

- Temperature: 16 to 27 °C (Comfortable range; outside it growth slows.)

- Dies at: below 10 or above 32 °C (Days beyond these temperatures kill it.)

- Soil pH: 5.5 to 7 pH (Soil acidity it prefers.)

- Grows up: 0.55 cm/month (How fast it gains height in good conditions.)

- Spreads: 3 cm/month (How fast its edge creeps outwards.)

- Copes with wet: fair (How well it stands soggy soil; poor means rot comes quickly.)

- Copes with still air: good (Sealed jars have still air; poor means grey mould finds it.)

- Copes with shade: good (How well it holds on in dim light.)

- Copes with drying: fair (How well it survives the jar drying out.)

- Water use: 0.08 ml/cm²/day (Water drawn up from its roots per cm² of leaves in room air; a sealed jar cuts this to a fraction and returns it down the glass.)

- Leaf drop: 3 %/month (Share of its leaves it sheds each month as litter for the cleanup crew.)

- Soft leaves: yes (Soft new growth that hungry isopods will nibble.)

- Full size: 7.5 cm tall, 45 cm wide (Its size when grown, before the lid stops it.)

## Care

- Day length: 10 to 14 h

- Substrate: Moist

## What kills it

- cold drafts
- drying out

## Description
In shade and humid air it spreads quickly. A small jar fills up fast, so trim it back often. Cuttings are easy to tuck back in elsewhere.

Also called watermelon begonia, pellionia.

Estimated, where sources were thin: rates and limits are horticultural estimates, not measured.

## Sources

- [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellionia_repens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellionia_repens)

[Grow it in a jar](https://glassjar.garden/?guide=plants/pellionia-repens)

[Trailing jade](https://glassjar.garden/guide/plants/peperomia-rotundifolia/) · [Venus flytrap](https://glassjar.garden/guide/plants/dionaea-muscipula/) · [All plants](https://glassjar.garden/guide/plants/)