In propagation
Philodendron Pink Princess
- Growing in
- Potted, chunky mix
- Variegation
- Pink and cream across green, on deep burgundy petioles
- In our care since
- 2026-06
The one plant here we underestimated. It sat in our own notes as “the potted philodendron” until we looked properly.
Pink Princess is the plant that taught a lot of people what unstable variegation means. The pink is not a fixed trait — it’s a chimera, a mutation carried in one layer of the growing tip, and the plant can lose it. Give it too little light and it reverts to plain green. Let it run the other way and it throws leaves that are almost entirely pink, beautiful and unable to photosynthesise, which the plant eventually abandons.
Keeping a Pink Princess pink is an ongoing decision, not a purchase. That’s also why we won’t take cuttings from it yet: a cutting made below the wrong node produces a green plant forever, and no amount of care brings the pink back.
On counterfeits. Solid-pink plants sold cheaply as “Pink Congo” are treated with a chemical that forces temporary pink; they revert to green within months and never come back. A real Pink Princess has sectoral variegation — patches and splits, never a uniformly pink leaf on an otherwise ordinary plant. Ours will be sold with its full history on this site, which is the only proof that actually means anything.
Next step. Growing on as a stock plant. Cuttings only once there are variegated nodes to spare — cutting the wrong node is how people lose the pink permanently.