Centella asiatica is trying to colonize my windowsill like it signed a lease with the moss and never told me. I’d love to both keep a tidy indoor specimen and make a proper herbarium sheet that doesn’t look like someone pressed a sad seaweed salad into a phone book. So far, every attempt at pressing has ended in a translucent, brownish… pancake. Meanwhile, the mother plant is enthusiastically throwing stolons into neighboring pots like a botanical prankster.
Looking for advanced, real-world tips from anyone who has:
- Kept a compact, “civilized” indoor Centella asiatica for more than a year without it staging a creeping coup d’état.
- Successfully made a herbarium-quality sheet from it that stays flat, green(ish), and shows useful features instead of turning into botanical jerky.
Context and what I’ve tried:
- Culture: Trays and shallow pots, constantly moist substrate, bright indirect light (roughly 150-200 µmol/m²/s, 12-14h), temps 20-24°C. It grows like a dream… and then dreams of annexing adjacent planters.
- Containment: Tried hoop training and frequent runner pinches. Considering a “ring pot” barrier or root-pruning pot to discourage escapism. Anyone tried a wick system or a saucer bog setup that doesn’t trigger salt creep or fungus gnat raves?
- Fertilizer: ¼-½ strength balanced liquid, weekly, plus Ca/Mg. More N = salad plates; more K = slightly sturdier petioles, maybe tighter internodes. Does pushing K actually keep leaves smaller in your experience, or is that placebo with extra steps?
- Pests: Fungus gnats think it’s a water park. Sticky traps help, but how are you managing gnats and mites in a constantly moist setup without turning the place into a chemical weapons testing site?
Herbarium questions (aka how not to make leaf soup on paper):
- Best stage to press? Young but fully expanded leaves, or slightly older for thicker tissue that doesn’t liquefy?
- Handling stolons: Do you include a rooted node plus a bit of runner to show growth habit, or is that asking for a lumpy mess? Tips for arranging the petiole and showing venation clearly?
- Pre-dry hacks: Quick blot + a few hours in a ventilated box with desiccant before the main press-anyone tried this to prevent the dreaded browning? How often are you swapping papers on a water-loving plant like this to keep mold at bay?
- Warm-air flow vs. classic press: Gentle airflow and warmth keeps mine from molding, but color tanks. Is a low-temp dehydrator or microwave flower press actually worth it for Centella, or does it just accelerate the pancake effect?
- Color retention: Any go-to tricks that don’t wreck long-term stability? (Not trying to museum-crime this with spray fixatives; looking for legit techniques.)
- Flowers indoors: Has anyone actually coaxed Centella to flower inside so you can document umbels on the sheet? Daylength or maturity tricks that work under LEDs?
Bonus weirdness I’m considering:
- A “living herbarium” approach: training one plant flat on a wire grid so everything grows in one plane, then harvesting a single glorious, frame-worthy specimen from it. Vanity? Absolutely. Possible? Unknown.
If you’ve tamed this creeping overachiever or have a herbarium workflow that keeps it from turning into pressed slime, drop your methods, gear, and regrets. My bookshelf and my blotting papers thank you in advance.