In general, my advice is to leave newly acquired plants in their plastic nursery pots while they are adapting to their new environments. Often, many plants that are kept indoors rarely need to be repotted. I suggest that you put the plastic pots inside more attractive planters of your choosing. Leave the roots undisturbed. Lots can go wrong when plants are repotted unnecessarily and /or incorrectly.

Most heartily agree! Leave it be to acclimate!

Also, some of those plants with multiple stems in one pot are meant to stay together to form a nice full plant.

The choice is entirely yours to make. You're "supposed" to do what makes you happy. If you want countless pots of purple waffle plants, you could separate them, or you could propagate the stems to make more.

PW grows upward until it becomes heavy enough that the stem leans over and touches the ground, where each node takes root, forming a patch. In a pot, once a stem leans over the side of a pot, there is no soil in which it can take root, so it would have a trailing appearance.

Vine usually implies an ability to go up a tree or structure, which is not a quality of PW.

Having been purchased does not indicate anything about a plants need or not to be repotted. Some people always repot right away, some wait for a certain amount of time, some never do repot new plants, and some do it at the point when it seems to them that the plant would be happier/grow bigger/not dry so quickly/look better/provide something to do that day, if it was done. If there was just one approach that everyone used, and just one reason for doing or not doing a thing, we would have nothing to talk about.

(And it's Costa Farms, not Acosta Farms.) The houseplant company they bought is called Exotic Angel but it seems like they are trying to move away from that name, whether they actually are or not:
http://www.costafarms.com/coll...

Hi Tiffany!

You're right (of course!) that Exotic Angel Plants is a branded collection of plants that Costa Farms grows.
:-)

Technically, Exotic Angel is the brand, not the company we acquired back in 2014 --- the company was Hermann Englemann Greenhouses, Inc., and they established the Exotic Angel brand. (Fun fact: They called it Exotic Angel because the company founder, Hermann Englemann's surname translates to 'man of angels' from German.)

I'm curious, though, why you think we're trying to move away from the Exotic Angel brand? (Happily, it's not the case. The opposite, actually, we're investing more into the brand. But if it feels to you like we're getting away from it, I'd love to hear how/why.)

BTW: I don't want to hijack this thread, so if anyone wants to share impressions they have of the Exotic Angel plant brand --- especially any changes you've perceived since Costa Farms started it growing it --- feel free to message me.

Thanks!

---Justin
Costa Farms Horticulturist

Heythere, Justin! TY for the informative comments!

Seeing tags like this gave me that impression. I'm so glad to hear that it was a wrong one!

Hey Tiffany,

That makes sense. If you're curious, our retailer customers (the customer is always right, you know!) only authorize us to grow our Exotic Angel collection in four pot sizes: 3.8-inch-wide, 4.8-inch-wide, 6.6-inch-wide baskets, and 8-inch-wide hanging baskets. That cute little Sansevieria is not one of those sizes (I believe it's a 2.5-inch-wide pot).

---Justin
Costa Farms Horticulturist

TY, Justin.

How fun to read all these posts. I'm new here and wanted to see if my purple waffle is uniquely thirsty, but it sounds like most of you agree that the leaves love misting and soil doesn't like to get dry throughout. Think I'll try a pebble tray like I've read from some of you. I like misting the leaves and the plant seems happy overall, but if I go two days without watering, it droops suddenly and quite dramatically. I'm usually very cautious about too much water (learned the hard way over the years). My question to you superstar green thumbs is also about the plant's light needs? I only have an east facing window but my purple waffle seemed to not being too close to it (dried edges of older leaves) so I am trying a bit further away now but nervous that it isn't enough light - the side of a bookcase shades most light from the window. Thanks for posting so much fascinating stuff.

@wordfortreasure - The east window should not be too much light for it. The brown leaf edges are more likely a result of the soil getting a bit too dry. When plants are allowed to get dry enough to droop or wily a bit, it is often followed by some leaf edge discoloration a bit later.

May I say again, for other newbies, misting doesn't replace watering.

I would add to Sally's post about misting that unless you mist hourly throughout the day, misting is ineffective at increasing humidity, as is commonly assumed.

Also, nearly all commonly used indoor houseplants do not require high humidity even though they are native to humid regions. Those species that do require high humidity are not often sold because they fare so poorly indoors except in terrariums.