Paddle Plant
Kalanchoe luciae
Through the year 🗓️
☀️ Summer now
Maximum sun (acclimated gradually) builds the red edges everyone grows it for.
🍂 Fall
Cooler nights plus bright days intensify color. Taper watering as growth slows.
❄️ Winter
Keep nearly dry, bright and above 50 °F; mature rosettes may send up their once-in-a-lifetime flower spike.
🌱 Spring
Pot up offsets from any rosette that bloomed over winter and resume normal watering.
The details
Light & placement
- Light
- Bright light with several hours of direct sun; full sun is what paints the paddles red
- Ideal PPFD
- 400–700 µmol·m⁻²·s⁻¹
- Grow-light distance
- 8–14 in below LED
Water & feed
- Watering method
- Soak-and-dry: drench, drain, then let the soil dry out completely. Avoid splashing the powdery leaf coating; it doesn't grow back.
- Fertilizer
- Cactus/succulent feed at ½ strength, every 4–6 wks in spring–summer; none in winter.
Home & habit
- Soil
- Gritty, fast-draining cactus/succulent mix; pH 6.0–7.0
- Humidity
- Low (30–50%)
- Temperature
- 60–85 °F
- Mature size
- 1–2 ft; flower spike to 3 ft+
- Repotting
- Every 2 yrs in spring, or when offsets crowd the pot
- Propagation
- Offsets at the base, or leaf/stem cuttings callused a few days before potting.
When something looks wrong
- Overwatering signs
- Mushy, collapsing lower paddles; stem rot at the soil line
- Underwatering signs
- Thin, wrinkled paddles losing their plumpness
- Common pests
- Mealybugs, aphids (on flower stalks), scale
Common problems 🩺
The usual suspects when Paddle Plant looks unhappy. Most houseplant trouble is watering or light, not disease — see all plant problems if you are not sure which plant is the culprit.
Soft, mushy lower leaves
Likely cause
Overwatering.
What to do
Let the soil dry out fully and water at the base, never into the rosette.
Red leaf edges fading to plain green
Likely cause
Not enough direct sun — the red is a sun response.
What to do
Several hours of direct light brings the blush back.
Stretching upward between leaves
Likely cause
Too little light.
What to do
Move it to a sunnier window. It also stretches naturally before flowering, after which the rosette dies and leaves offsets.
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