Anthurium Radicans Care InfographicAnthurium radicans or laceleaf plant is an evergreen plant with beautiful leaves growing one leaf per petiole. It is a creeping plant from the tropical rainforests of Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and the Caribbean, and other names for plants in the genus “anthurium” are laceleaf, tailflower, anthurium and flamingo flower.
This plant is not demanding when you grow it with the right conditions. Continue reading to know the optimal anthurium radicans care requirements.
Contents
What Is Anthurium Radicans?
Anthurium radicans is an evergreen and herbaceous plant with a height of 15 to 20 inches. It has dark but shiny leaves that reflect light with ease and the leaves are deeply pleated in texture. The anthurium radicans plant has one leaf per petiole and the petioles grow to form a cluster.
Anthurium Radicans Care Requirements
As a low-maintenance plant, you only need to grow your anthurium radicans plant in the right condition and you will have almost nothing to worry about. The right temperature, humidity, light, nutrients and water conditions you grow anthurium radicans in will determine the health and growth rate of the plant.
You will surely love to see anthurium radicans on your patio or office as the plant grows to cover the pot or container with its shiny leaves.
What’s more, anthurium radicans is very easy to maintain, so you get to enjoy their beauty without spending a lot of effort to care for them.
Would you like to grow anthurium radicans plants? Continue reading to learn what you should know about the care requirements of this plant.
– Soil Requirements
Pay close attention to the substrate that you grow your anthurium radicans in. The suitable substrate for anthurium plants is organic, nutrient-rich, loose and has the ability to drain water quickly. The soil or potting mix should be slightly acidic with a pH ranging from 6.1 to 6.5.
You can amend compost with sand and perlite for your anthurium radicans plant. Just make sure that excess water drains quickly from the anthurium radicans soil. Do not use regular garden soil to grow your potted anthurium radicans plants because it may be too heavy for the plant.
You should perforate some holes at the bottom of the pot or container that you will use for your anthurium radicans. These holes should be large enough to permit excess water in the substrate to flow out quickly.
– Water Requirements
When it comes to the water needs of anthurium radicans plants, you do not have much work to do because the plant can tolerate a wide range of moisture content in the substrate. Anthurium radicans plants love a consistently moist substrate, but they are also drought-tolerant.
If you can, you should water the anthurium plants two or three times a week in the warm months of the year. You should not overwater your anthurium radicans plants as they cannot tolerate a soggy substrate. Remember that the substrate also has a role in the watering of your plants. Make sure that the substrate is loose and drains water quickly.
– Light Requirements
Anthurium radicans plant is evergreen, meaning that it does not shed leaves throughout the year as long as you are growing it in the right conditions. If you plant your anthurium radicans in a place where it cannot get enough light, you will see the leaves falling and the plant will become very weak.
Anthurium radicans plants require dappled sunlight. If you can grow them in the eastern part of your home, you do not need to worry about light anymore. Make sure that the plant has enough morning sun and if it must receive afternoon sun, you should filter the light so that it does not become too much.
The leaves of your anthurium radicans can get burnt due to sunburn, so you want to make sure that your plants get just the right amount of sun daily. Four to six hours of daily sun is preferred for anthurium radicans plants.
– Humidity Requirements
Humidity is an important factor that you must consider before bringing a plant home. Humidity helps plants to regulate the water movement in and out of the plant. As for anthurium radicans plants, they prefer a humid room with humidity around or above 80 percent.
This plant naturally grows in rainforests and other places with high humidity, so you must recreate the environment that they are well-adapted to. If the room humidity level is above 50 percent, your plants can grow without problems. Just make sure that the room is not arid. It would help to mist your anthurium radicans leaves with water droplets.
– Temperature Requirements
So far, the most important factor that you should consider before you purchase a plant is its temperature needs. You must ensure that you can provide the preferred temperature range for a plant before you bring it home. Do not forget that anthurium radicans is a tropical plant, hence it is not frost-hardy.
You should only grow your anthurium radicans plants in USDA hardiness zones 11 and 12. These plants prefer a temperature range between 65 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit. If you live outside USDA hardiness zones 11 and 12, you may need to grow your anthurium radicans in a controlled environment such as in a greenhouse or inside a grow bag.
– Fertilizing Requirements
Every plant needs nutrients to grow and produce leaves and flowers. When it comes to their nutrient needs, anthurium radicans plants are not as demanding as other plants. You can grow your anthurium radicans by adding an orchid nutrient mix to the substrate so that the foliage can grow richer and greener.
You do not need to feed your anthurium radicans plants regularly. You can feed them only two or three times a year. To ensure that your plants have sufficient nutrients in the growing season, feed them in early spring, between spring and summer, and late summer. You do not need to feed your anthurium radicans plants in autumn and winter.
Make sure that the fertilizer that you choose to use is balanced and water-soluble.
– Pruning
What happens when your anthurium radicans plants grow out of shape? Well, these plants grow quickly, so you need to prune them regularly so that they stay pretty just like when you recently purchased them. Use your pruning tools to remove excess leaves. Also, try to remove all the weak, yellow or dead leaves that you can find.
You may need to prune your anthurium radicans plants once or twice per year according to the maturity of the plant. Just remember to properly sterilize your pruning knife or scissors before you use them so that you do not expose your anthurium radicans to bacterial attacks.
– Repotting Your Plants
Every two to three years, you will need to change your anthurium radicans’ pot to a larger one. Your anthurium radicans plants will start growing slowly when they become root-bound, so you want to free their roots by transferring them into a larger pot.
You should also change the substrate to a new one because in two or three years, the substrate properties will surely deteriorate and the substrate may not drain water quickly as it used to. You should transfer your anthurium radicans plants into a new substrate in a new pot.
While repotting your plants, inspect their roots. Dead roots that have a darker coloration may attract fungi and bacteria in the new potting mix, so you will want to prune them off.
– Suitable Mulch
Mulch is great for your anthurium radicans plants as it can help conserve moisture in the soil. Mulch also boosts the beauty of your anthurium, so you should consider mulching the plant. Organic mulch products such as sawdust and wood shavings are not fit for indoor plants, so you should use inorganic products like beautiful stones.
– Leaf and Bloom Care
Anthurium radicans plant was first described and studied in 1854. The leaves of anthurium radicans plants are beautiful caudate-shaped; they are colored dark green and can grow up to 3 inches long.
Anthurium radicans flowers can be purple, pink or maroon and the plant produces a year-round bloom. Each bloom can last for two to three months before it withers and makes way for another.
Anthurium radicans plants bloom year-round and do not require any extra care to bloom. You only need to make sure that their fertilizer is rich in potassium and phosphorus. Your plants will produce flowers when a bloom ends.
Note that if the anthurium radicans flowers drop unexpectedly, the plant may be stressed (check its temperature, humidity and nutrient levels).
As for the leaves, your anthurium radicans will thank you if you can mist them with water droplets occasionally. Evenly mist the droplets so that no region receives more droplets than another. You should stand a bit far from the plant when misting it so that the leaves will not drip water while you mist them.
– Selecting Healthy Plants
The first thing that you need to do if you want to grow anthurium radicans plants without problems is to select the healthiest plant. While you can buy anthurium plants from online stores, you should go to physical stores if you can so that you can examine the plant by yourself.
Look at the plant’s petioles and leaves to make sure that there is no sign of disease in the plant. The leaves are dark green and do not have spots in them, so if you see irregular spots in a leaf, you should not purchase that one.
If you can, please check the humidity, light and temperature conditions in which the plants are currently growing in. The present condition in the store may be the best parameters to grow your anthurium radicans plants in as they are already used to those conditions.
– How to Plant Your Anthurium Radicans
It is time to welcome your anthurium radicans plants to their new home. Assuming that the plants came in plant nursery bags and you’d love to plant them in beautiful pots or containers, follow the steps below:
- Pour some suitable substrate into the pot to cover the bottom 3-5 inches.
- Carefully tear the nursery bag to reveal the plant roots and substrate.
- Dust off substrate from the anthurium radicans roots.
- Place the plant just on top of the substrate in the pot.
- Pour in more substrate to cover the entire root system of your plant.
- Wait for a few hours and then water the plant.
- When the plant is fully anchored, you should place the pot in its permanent location.
You will know that your plant is fully anchored when the leaves and petioles no longer look weak.
Propagation
Do you love your anthurium radicans plant? If so, you may want to get more of the plant so that you can keep them in various parts of your home, office or garden. There is always the option of going to the store to buy another one, but if you have a mature plant, you can easily propagate it for free.
To propagate your anthurium radicans plant, all you need is a stem cutting. Though you can plant the anthurium radicans seeds, it is easier to use the stem cutting for propagation. You can use a pruning knife or scissors to collect a stem cutting that is six or more inches long. Make sure that you collect the stem cutting from a mature and healthy anthurium radicans plant.
– Propagate in Soil
There are two ways to start your anthurium radicans stem cutting. The quickest way is to plant it directly in a suitable potting mix and water it regularly. If you want the cutting to grow quickly, consider dipping it in a rooting hormone before you plant it into the substrate.
– Propagate in Water
Another way to start your anthurium radicans plant is by placing the stem cutting into clean water in a glass jar. You can easily monitor your anthurium radicans growth and even see the roots when they emerge.
Continue to add clean water while you remove the old water until your plant is ready. You can tell that your anthurium radicans is ready for transplanting from the length of developed roots.
Problems
Truthfully, anthurium radicans plants are very easy to grow and care for. A very cool thing about these plants is that they are not prone to diseases or pests and you can grow these plants without problems.
Despite that, you should still try to watch out for the following:
– Presence of Fungi
Even though anthurium radicans plants are usually free from pests, you can sometimes see mold growing around your plant or even on the surface of the leaves. Fungi on or around your plant can be harmful, so you want to try to prevent this from happening. There are several ways to prevent fungi from attacking your anthurium radicans.
You should go to a nearby gardening store to buy suitable fungicidal products for your plant. Also, you can use a warm and damp cloth to wipe the mold off your anthurium radicans leaves. If you are overwatering your plant, you should reduce your watering rate as doing this can attract fungi as well.
– Overwatering
Even though anthurium radicans plants love water, you need to be careful when watering them so that you do not overwater. In your anthurium radicans active growing season, you will most likely water the plant twice or thrice a week. Anything more than this is overwatering.
Overwatering of anthurium radicans can also occur if you water the plant at the wrong time. It is best that you water your anthurium radicans in the morning so that excess droplets on its leaves and substrate can evaporate during the day. Note that overwatering can lead to your anthurium radicans developing root rot, so you want to avoid this.
– Toxicity
Anthurium radicans plants contain some crystals known as calcium oxalate crystals. These crystals are usually on the surface of the plant leaves and they can be irritating to our digestive system if we consume the leaves of the anthurium radicans plant.
To prevent yourself or your kids from getting food poisoning, you should not eat your anthurium radicans leaves or any part of the plant. Also, do not allow your cats and dogs to get close to the plant.
Congratulations! You are ready to grow, care for and propagate your anthurium radicans plants.
FAQ
Can I use cactus soil for Anthurium Radicans?
Yes, cactus soil can be used for Anthurium Radicans as it provides good drainage and aeration.
Does Anthurium Radicans like to be misted?
Yes, Anthurium Radicans benefits from misting as it prefers high humidity levels.
What is the difference between Anthurium Radicans and Luxurians?
Anthurium Radicans has more elongated leaves and a smaller overall size compared to Anthurium Luxurians, which has larger and rounder leaves.
Conclusion
As you can see, anthurium radicans is a low-maintenance plant as long as you provide it with the right conditions. Remember the following when growing anthurium radicans plants:
- Anthurium radicans plants love a humid room, so grow them in a room with above average humidity.
- The best temperature range to grow anthurium radicans plants is between 65 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit.
- This plant enjoys bright but dappled light. Do not burn the leaves of your plant by exposing it to too much sunlight.
- Even though anthurium radicans is drought-tolerant, it surely enjoys regular watering. Water your plants two or three times a week.
- You should feed your plants occasionally, especially when they are actively growing. Feed them two or three times a year.
Congratulations! You are now ready to grow and propagate your anthurium radicans; just keep in mind the handy tips and tricks you learned in this guide.
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