Plants with dark red leaves will always steal the show. Their leaves are mostly brilliant and they help boost the beauty of your home.
These plants may be beautiful but they are very easy to grow and care for – examples include the polka dot plant and smoke bush.
To know the best ones that you can grow, read this article.
Contents
A Variety of Plants With Dark Red Leaves
1. Polka Dot Plant
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There’s no way you’d see this beauty in a shop and not want it in your home. Hypoestes phyllostachya plants are popular indoor plants and you can already tell why. Polkas have leaves with multiple colors but most often, the leaves have a dark red theme.
The leaves also have white, green, or pink dots on their surface and these dots are the inspiration for the name of the plant. Polkas are very popular plants, so you can easily get a suitable potting mix and fertilizer for them.
However, if you’d love to make a mix by yourself, make sure that it has a lot of organic nutrients and is lightweight. To permit water drainage, ensure that you use perlite. Remember to prune your polkas to maintain their beauty.
2. Coral Bells
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Here’s a cute plant with dark red leaves that you should grow. This plant has wrinkled leaves that come in different colors, so you get to select a plant with your favorite color. While bells are beautiful as standalone plants, you may want to grow many of them and arrange them based on their colors to give your home the most beautiful design.
Each variety of bells has specific care requirements, but they all require well-drained soil. Do not grow them in clayey soil. Also, ensure that the soil is humus and nutrient-rich so that the plants can grow quickly and without problems.
3. Smoke Bush
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Of course, when looking for plants with dark red leaves, we still need to consider shrubs and trees. Smoke trees are beautiful dark red leaf plants but what’s more appealing about them is their beautiful red smoke-like flowers. The appearance of smoke tree flowers inspires the name of the plant and you can get a beautiful background in your home when you grow the plants.
Smokes do not require a lot of attention so long as you get their required conditions right. For example, you must first consider their preferred USDA hardiness zone so that you can grow them without problems. Also, make sure that the soil does not dry out quickly, as the plants need consistently moist soil.
4. Emerald Ripple Peperomia
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How’d you like to grow a mound-forming plant in your pots or hanging baskets? The Peperomia caperata is popular amongst the radiator plants and it comes with dark red-colored leaves. You can grow this beautiful plant as a companion to Peperomia verticillata, Chinese evergreen, and other plants of your choice.
To maintain the beautiful leaves, ensure that you protect your emerald ripples from the full sun. Also, remember to make holes in the pot or hanging basket so that extra water and quickly drain off the potting mix. Make use of phosphorus-rich fertilizer for the plants.
5. Ti Plant
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The cordyline fruticose plant is a masterpiece and its beauty is second to none when you plant it at the right spot. This beauty makes a good companion plant for the Japanese barberry, as they have similar colors. You can also grow Tis indoors if you want, you just need to give them access to full sun.
These beautiful plants will appreciate regular fertilizing so that they can maintain their beautiful and colorful leaves. Ensure that you feed them at least once monthly. To reduce your rate of feeding the plants, grow them in a nutrient-rich potting mix.
6. Red Pagoda
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If you are a fan of succulents or would love to grow a succulent garden, here’s the Crassula capitella plant for you. This cute succulent has dark red leaf tips and a contrasting light green in the remaining parts of its leaves. While you can grow the pagoda plant alone, you can also grow it as a companion of Sedum rubrotinctum to get a more beautiful garden
Just like other succulents, your pagoda needs full sun or at least six hours of daily sun. Also, their roots need access to the air, so you should use loose or lightweight potting mix. So long as you do not overwater the places, you will grow them with no problems.
7. Garden Croton
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If you love plants with multi-colored leaves, here’s a popular example for you. The Codiaeum variegatum which is also referred to as mammy red has dark red, purple, and green leaves. The plant grows quickly and in a few weeks, you should see the appearance of your home growing from zero to ten. You can grow these crotons both indoors and outdoors.
When growing your crotons in USDA zone 9, give them access to the full sun so that they can grow quickly. However, in zones 10-11, grow them in partial sun so that they do not get sunburnt. Ensure that you protect the plants from the heat of summer, as they can get stressed easily.
8. Poinsettia
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Lively plant, right? The Euphorbia pulcherrima plant is one with both green and red foliage. The red leaves grow above the green ones and they look just like the icing on top of a cake.
Even though the plant is super beautiful, it is very easy to grow and care for. Just grow it in its hardy zones and remember to fertilize it regularly. If you like, you can grow it with nerve plants and others.
9. Painted-Leaf Begonia.
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Begonias will always represent when you are looking for the most beautiful plants. This rex begonia plant has multicolored leaves but the leaves usually have a dark red theme. It is an indoor plant that you can grow as a companion with the caladium bicolor or heart of Jesus plant.
Begonias need consistent moisture and regular feeding. Immediately after you see the top inches of the potting mix are dry, water your begonias again. There are begonia-specific fertilizers, so make use of them for your plants. However, if you want to fertilize them with other types of fertilizer, give them products rich in potassium, iron, and phosphorus.
Conclusion
Awesome plants, right?
Before you start planting, remember these points from the article:
- Some plants with dark red leaves that you should consider growing are poinsettias, red pagodas, emerald ripples, etc.
- While these plants are beautiful when you grow them alone, you can use them as companion plants for other beautiful plants to make a more beautiful garden.
- If you are growing succulent plants, be sure to grow them in lightweight soil.
- Always put the USDA hardiness zone requirement of a plant into consideration.
- If your plants have stunted growth, check their light exposure and how much water and nutrients they receive.
Now that you know so many dark red leaf plant names, what are you waiting for to start planting? Remember to use the care tips in this article.
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