Wandering Jew (Tradescantia zebrina)

This is by far the easiest houseplant I have ever owned.  It will grow in any lighting condition and almost any watering habit.  And, it is super easy to propagate.

Here is the "mother" zebrina about 5 months after I had received it as a gift.  It is already quite overgrown and is partially choking itself off.

Now, when I was first learning my botanical basics with this plant, I would propagate it something like this… Clip off a dozen or so tips, stash them in like 3 glasses and then plant them each 1"-2" apart in a new pot.  With two years of countless propagations (I have easily propagated this plant into at least 40 different pots), I have refined my technique to involve 10 times the clippings and almost no spacing between replants.  Observe:

Just a few clipping per glass!  What a novice!

The sparseness of the plantings led to sparseness in the adults.  When people refer to their plants as "leggy," this is what I picture:

Then I started with the idea of clustering the clippings in more dense configurations.  This example is probably 12 clippings twist-tied together and set in a juice glass.

I took the twist-tied cluster out of the water and set it in new soil a week or two later.  I don't think I even took the twist-tie off until it had doubled in size!

Now my current technique involves shoving 100 or so clippings into one girthy but stout vase.  These have been sitting a few weeks and probably have loads of roots going by now, so I am due to plant them this week.

Below is a cluster I had planted using the rooting technique above.  This looks to be only a couple weeks in the pot and already it is super dense!

For those at home wondering what constitutes a clipping suitable for propagation, below is an ideal clipping.  The goal is to retain 3-5 leaves and a decent length of stem to set in the water.  Roots will shoot out from the locations where you have removed leaves, so it is best to ensure that your stem has a couple inches to it.  You set this clipping in a glass of water, making sure no leaves are touching the water, and you will likely see roots by the next morning.  You should wait until there is some length to the roots before planting them in soil.  Often times the stem will not be perfectly straight like this one, which can make it difficult to determine an appropriate clipping point and the extent of leaf removal.