Kalanchoe Fedtschenkoi Care: How to Grow The Lavender Scallops Plant

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This eye-buzzing succulent is ever-charming and I bet you wouldn’t get enough of it if you owned one. As petite as it looks, the Kalanchoe fedstschenkoi is such a crowd-pleaser, carries a voguish appeal, and most houseplant enthusiasts know this so well like the palm of their hands, as the old cliché goes.

So, if you’re looking to own such a compact succulent — the lavender scallops — this guide would be an impeccable blueprint of everything you literary need to know.

What’s Utterly Striking About This Kalanchoe Variety?

If you haven’t come across this tiny and humble succulent yet, your primary goal should be to weigh all options in order to know whether it’s a more tenable Kalanchoe variety over its siblings. What you might not be in the loop with is that this plant is also popularly known as Lavender Scallops, literary becauseits scallop-shaped foliage, and it’s more of a houseplant than an outdoor landscaping accessory.

Noting the fact that all Kalanchoe varieties are succulents, it’s quite amusing that this plant can stretch its survival traits a little bit further when the existing conditions aren’t quite useful. And that’s the same with most other succulents that are native to Madagascar.

The Lavender plant belongs to the Crassulaceae family and pulls out all its DNA from the Bryophyllum genus.Due to such hardy attributes, it’s relatively easy to ignore taking care of your Lavender Scallops the way it should. Even though it can store water and go days without the right growing requirements, this would ultimately cause the foliage to deteriorate.

How Big Does It Grow?

Roughly, this variety would reach to about 1’ or 2’ inches in height, when grown under the most tactful conditions throughout all seasons. It also blooms multiple sets of leaves that evenly spread to fill up the growing medium. The leaves are dominantly green but have a cream layout on their scalloped edges. Other names it casually goes by include;

Kalanchoes stonecrop
Gray Sedum
Variegated Lavender Scallops
South American Air Plant

More Stunning Varieties in The Kalanchoe Genus

If you take a long stroll in your nearest gardening store, there are solid chances you might fall for another variety over the Lavender Scallop houseplant.

Below is a brief lead to other options you’ll highly likely want to consider growing if the first experience turns out well:

Calandiva Plant: If you particularly want a variety that blooms bright flowers every summer or spring, then look no further. The Calandiva grows wildly and doesn’t ask for much when it comes to the nurturing requirements.
Chocolate Soldier: The chocolate soldier, also known as the Panda plant, is incredibly distinct from other varieties for its rare-brown foliage and capacity to withstand harsh conditions. Thriving under USDA hardiness zones 10 through 11, this Kalanchoe sibling has the potential to grow up to 24 inches in height.
Flapjacks: Flapjacks are petite succulents that resemble pancakes. And same as the chocolate soldier, this variety also roughly burgeons up to 24 inches tall and wide. It features conspicuous succulent leaves that take the shape of rosette clusters.
Lanin Kalanchoe: Besides sprouting a few leaves around spring, the Lanin Kalanchoe stays compact, unlike Flapjacks or the Chocolate Soldier. Typically, it only reaches 12 inches, probably after a year or two. The Lanin Kalanchoe is the most fitting sibling for gardening enthusiasts looking for a tiny houseplant plant that maintains a deep dark-green foliage every season.
Kerinci Kalanchoe: One solid feature you can’t miss to spot on the Kerinci Kalanchoe, is the aptness to produce lavish-pink flowers during spring. So long as it has access to bright light, you can comfortably grow the Kerinci Kalanchoe as a houseplant.
Simone Kalanchoe: Same as the Lanin variety, your Simone Kalanchoe will barely reach beyond 12 inches tall during its optimal maturity stage and yields white flowers around spring or the early weeks of summer.
Queen Lindsay Kalanchoe: The Queen Linsday is opulently famous for its dark-green leaves and two sets of golden-yellow flowers on the stalks which often sprout every spring. This variety grows up to 12 inches tall, on average, but would hardly go beyond that.

Lavender Scallops Plant Care Tips

Watering & Fertilizer

It’s quite safe to assume that each variety in the Kalanchoe family is a succulent, and that means it has leaves that are genetically modified to store water so the plant can become drought resistant. In that context, your Lavender Scallop won’t need high-frequency watering sessions, even during summer and spring when the temperatures are relatively higher.

So, to avoid ruining your plant’s wellbeing by soaking it in water for too long, one or two sessions every month during the warmer seasons would just be fine for this gorgeous succulent.

Before the next watering schedule, make sure the first few inches of the topsoil are entirely dry. Feeding, on the other side, also helps boost the plant’s growth rate and maintain its radiant foliage. When summer checks in, use soluble fertilizer to feed your houseplant, say, twice a week all through the months.

While almost all succulents need less watering sessions during winter, you also want to quit feeding your plant around this season since the growth hormones are hardly receptive if the surrounding temperatures are consistently at the freezing point.

Right through the entire winter season, you need to wait until the plant begins to show early signs of getting thirsty such as the leaves slightly shrinking, before watering it next.

Soil & Transplanting

Before choosing the right potting mix for your baby Lavender Scallop, you first have to put the drainage needs in mind. Succulents too need permeable soil so the roots don’t rot, especially when they’re at their early sprouting stages. Too much water getting stuck in the soil causes mold growth which stunts your plant’s overall growth.

To put it bluntly, you need to use porous soil that allows water to drain quickly, particularly one that’s made of sand and perlite. As your Kalanchoe plant grows older, it’ll eventually prompt you to transplant it into a bigger growing medium. And if it’s under favorable growing conditions, it’ll sprout wildly so you’ll need to transplant it probably about once every year.

Besides the fact that it has an immense potential to outgrow the first container, it’d also be the fact that it has an immense potential to outgrow the first container, it’d also be essential to change the old soil and replace it with one that has richer macronutrients.

While carrying out this easy exercise, be careful not to damage the roots or the leaves since they tend to be overly feeble. And most of all, you don’t want to ruin the whole aesthetic concept which this variety’s foliage is popularly known for.

Light, Humidity & Temperature

In most scenarios, this Kalanchoe variety is usually used more like a houseplant than an outdoor landscaping accessory, so the lighting, temperature, and humid conditions might vary—depending on where you want to place the container. This Madagascan native thrives best under USDA hardiness zone 9b or areas with warmer temperatures. So that plainly suggests you need to keep it in a surrounding with temperatures ranging between 50-60 °C during the daytime.

When the night falls, this succulent can reasonably tolerate temperatures between 4-7°C, but you need to keep the soil entirely dry when it significantly drops to this level. And no matter if you’re looking to grow it indoors or outdoors, this plant prefers the natural sun rays over grow lights.

If possible, place the containers on a windowsill where the plant can get full access to light, especially during the daybreak every summer. Ideally, use a south or west-facing window and remember to keep the humidity at a modest level.

Grooming & Maintenance

You won’t need to sweat the technique while grooming and maintaining this plant’s blazing appearance. The only handy stuff to do so is pruning as soon as the leaves begin to wither, which is seemingly natural as it grows older. If you look closely inside the container, preferably after your Kalanchoe hits one year old, you might spot a few plantlets growing on the edges.

Sometimes when the leaves shed, they sprout and form baby plants. Although this is an overwhelmingly impressive feature, you’ll hardly find with succulents, some households might just want a single unit per container—thus opt to prune the babies as soon as they begin to show up.

Toxicity levels

Same as many other houseplants, the Kalanchoe family is intensely toxic, although some blogs seem to argue differently about this particular variety. But since you don’t want to take any chances, it’s extremely important to keep the medium far from kids and pets.

How to Propagate Your Lavender Scallops

The most yielding ways to propagate your Lavender Scallops are using seeds, cuttings, division, or through the plantlets that sprout on the edges of the container. If you’re looking to grow this variety in the ground outdoors, the stems will drop and form new babies during the fall season.

All these options are quite viable, but the most bounteous method among them all is division. To get started with this propagation method:

Make a few leaf cuttings from the mother plant.
Leave them out in the sun to give freshly cut edges time to dry completely.
Use a compact pot with can support the newly propagated succulent and prepare cactus mix using a portion of sand to make the soil a lot more permeable. That would help achieve a faster drainage process.
Be careful while separating the cuttings from the base of the plant to avoid causing damage to the leaves.
Since the cuttings sprout roots within two to three weeks, you won’t necessarily need to use any rooting hormone. But if need be, just use a tiny portion of it. It’s far more beneficial for your plant needs to adapt to the existing conditions gradually, without depending on any synthetic modifiers.

Just in case you prefer using seeds to propagate your plant over other methods, you can wait till the flowers finish blooming so you can collect them. Using seeds, however, doesn’t show results quite sooner, compared to using leaf cuttings. After planting the seeds, don’t water the soil again until the seedlings emerge from the soil.

Common Pests & Diseases

Apart from being drought tolerant, this succulent is also not prone to detrimental diseases or pest attacks. The two common pests you’ll infrequently have to deal with are mealybugs and spider mites. If the pests aren’t outrightly visible, spray insecticides such as horticultural oil or neem oil on your plant to get rid of them rapidly.

Lavender Scallops Uses

Most Kalanchoes, including the Lavender Scallops, are more pleasing to the casual eye if grown as houseplants. But if you’re living in a region with warmer temperatures, it would be more suitable to grow it in the garden. For optimal growth, place the container on a windowsill where there’s enough natural light.