Hi everyone... First time poster. I'm looking for a bit of help, I purchased a plant at Home Depot back in August of 08 because it looked "pretty" only later to find out it was an Anthurium. It had two pink leaves / blooms on it when I bought it and it looked great. It all went down hill from there. For roughly 4-5 months the plant looked healthy but there were no blooms of any kind but beyond that nothing looked wrong. After that the leaves began to slowly start to dry up from the tip in. With the exception of the portion of the leaf that was drying up the rest of the leaf looked healthy. This went on for a few months and my neglect of the plant finally ticked me off enough that I'm doing something about it. I've gone through the entire plant and cut off all the dead drying portions of the leaves (This was probably 80%+ of the leaves). I've given it just a little bit of house plant fertilizer that I use on other plants I have around the house. I was hoping to get some advice as to what the drying up was and how to nurse this plant back to health. Was I doing something wrong or was it a disease? I've moved the plant from our upstairs bedroom which got a little bit of indirect evening sun through some UV screens to downstairs location where it will get a morning sun through a non UV screened window. Any advice to help me save the plant. Pictures during the clipping and after the clipping. Thanks in advance for all your help. Kris
have you ever repotted it? if so, into what kind of soil mix? how often are you watering? does the container have drainage holes??
Have you bothered to read the several, long, detailed articles on Anthuriums at the top of this forum ?
I think Sigtris is right. Anturiums love strong light but it needs to be Indirect.... No direct sun! If you can't tilt your blinds to achieve this then try moving the pot back away from the window.... or perhaps to the side of the window, thus allowing it to get the bright reflected light from the walls and ceiling. Just don't put it someplace too dim though or you'll get a slow growing, never blooming, leggy plant outta the deal. Drainage and water is a valid point as well though your photos don't appear to display signs of stagnant soil or rot. Don't allow the pot to stand in water. If the pot doesn't soak it all up in less than a day the dump it. The rule on water is to allow just the surface of the soil to dry then water well and allow the pot to drain a while before putting it back in it's saucer. The better the water quality the better off you'll be as well. Rainwater is best, followed by distilled and reverse osmosis... You'd be amazed at he difference... most Texas tap water is just too hard... My mom summers her anthuriums outside (she has a shaded porch). It's too hot for you to put it outside this year, you'll just shock it. Next year set it out mid to late April/early May they'll handle the heat if they can ease into it and they've got the shade for it. Remember though the more heat they get the more shade they need. Austin's got some good humidity levels though it'll love that...
Trikus' and Sigtris' advice are the best answers. I have a more advanced version of the same article at the top of this page about growing Anthurium species which can be found here: http://www.exoticrainforest.com/Grow or Growing Anthurium species.html That article was written with the assistance of one of the world's top aroid botanists and several of the most knowledgeable Anthurium growers and collectors in the world. I'm not sure if Trikus (Mic) had any input to this one but he has offered great advice many times. Anthurium can make great house plants but they are different from your average "house plant". You need to know how they grow in nature and more about the soil and water conditions they require. Duplicate their normal conditions as best possible and the plant will prosper. As for light, bright indirect is best as several have noted. Moderate fertilizer is also best but fast draining soil is one of the most important things you can do. I have NEVER seen an Anthurium at a store such as the one mentioned that is properly potted. Either article will help you but the expanded version has much more information, likely more than you'll want to read. I would recommend you re-pot the plant using something close to this mixture. This formula was given to me by the main greenhouse keeper at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, Missouri and I can promise they have far more Anthurium species in their collection than almost any other garden in the world than perhaps the Royal Botanic Garden Kew in London. I was just there one week ago and went through the entire collection which is massive! They suggest starting with a good potting soil but you must amend it. They vary the mixture depending on where the specimen originated in nature but since your plant is almost certainly a hybridized version of Anthurium andreanum from Central America this should work. Start with about 40 to 50% of the potting mix such as Miracle Grow Moisture Control and add to that a good helping of peat moss. Then that add about 1/3 more orchid potting mix that contains wood chips, charcoal and a bit of gravel. Schultz is a good brand for this. Then add some Perlite to help keep the soil very loose and fast draining (it also absorbs excess moisture). If you can get some cedar chips which are used for orchids add that as well and then cut a handful of high quality sphagnum moss into very small pieces. Mix all of this thoroughly and then re-pot the plant in the new mix in a slightly large pot than you now are using. Make sure the roots are not in a ball and can grow freely into the new soil. Also be certain the pot can drain freely into some sort of water collection tray which the pot should set inside. Once you pot it look at the holes on the bottom of the pot and make sure none of the wood or charcoal has clogged them! It is a very good idea to elevate the pot just a bit above the tray so water can collect beneath the plant and then allow humidity to evaporate up and around the leaves. If you use a fertilizer, keep it dilute. Some of the best growers I know use about 10% of the manufactures recommend amount but give it to the plant every time you water. Don't allow the soil to become soggy. The suggestion for water that is not hard is also excellent. In the wild these plants receive only rain water which is neutral in pH. You can do two things to duplicate that: 1) collect and use rain water or 2) buy reverse osmosis water in the grocery store. If you do then add your diluted fertilizer and use it just for your plants. I must tell you I have more than 100 species of Anthurium in my personal collection and our water is slightly hard. We have problems with only a few plants and the majority are growing very well with our city water. Still, major gardens use only reverse osmosis water for their specimens. By the way, the most successful Anthurium commercial grower I know uses only a 13-13-13 fertilizer. You can buy this in small quantity at Home Depot sold under the name DYNAMITE. Use only two or three pellets in a pot! If you use the 13-13-13 then don't add any fertilizer to your water. Make sure the soil is slightly damp, but never wet. Instead of putting a finger slightly into the soil put a finger in as far as possible and see how damp the soil is down around the roots. If the soil is dry down there the plant needs water but it must drain out of the pot and not remain soggy. Anthurium species also love to have air moving around their leaves and they will look bad if hot direct sunlight hits them directly. Anything you can do to keep them humid will help. Remember, the wild parents of your plant rarely are found in soil but are epiphytic and live attached to a tree well up in the canopy with their roots dangling in the air. Most of the year the air is moving and very humid with frequent rain. Anthurium species love humidity. Grow it like it was back in the jungle and I can almost guarantee it will recover and produce many inflorescence for you again. By the way, that colorful inflorescence isn't a flower, it is composed of a spathe (the colorful part) and a spadix. The true flowers grow along the spadix at the center when the plant is ready to reproduce. It isn't uncommon for the one you have to produce seeds in captive growth so long as it is happy. Good luck!
Thank you everyone for the wonderful advice. Just to answer a couple of questions from the posters. I did re-pot this plant about a week after I got it. The soil used at the time was 100% the Miracle Grow Moisture Control that Photopro mentioned, there was no amendment. I will be stopping by Home Depot later today for another project so I will see if I can find the amendments and fertilizer mentioned below. As for the water I had been using almost nothing but tap water and I know for a fact our water is very hard (you can see deposits on the soil in one of the plants next to it in the picture) I will be stocking up on some bottled water next time I hit the store so we will see if that makes a difference. The pot does have very good drainage, so good I had to buy a extra tray for overflow. I could go 4 days without watering it and then when I do it still manages to overflow the built in tray at the bottom of the pot. It's only been a week but no more of the brown spots have come back since cleaning up the plant and moving it. So maybe I'm on the right track. Lets see where we are in another week, I'll try and post some new pictures. Thanks again!
I've been doing some research with the help of several other growers and there could be another reason why you experienced this problem. Our research was totally unrelated to this post but may well apply. The Anthurium plants commonly sold in stores are almost all tissue cultured specimens. Simply, they were not grown from seed but instead were begun in a test tube and are little more than "clones". If the chemicals used are improperly mixed or too strong the plant may not produce inflorescences for a long period of time. Of course I know you are going to say it was producing lots of inflorescences at the time you bought it so this couldn't be the cause. That is because commercial growers want these plants to be as full of inflorescences as possible when they sell it. To cause that to happen they begin applying another chemical known as gibberellic acid (GA3) as soon as the plant begins to reach maturity. Gibberellic acid is a natural plant hormone and is used in agriculture to stimulate both cell division and cell elongation that affects the leaves as well as stems of many plants. The continued use of the chemical eventually affects fruit development. Since the fruit of an aroid is produced on the spadix gibberellic acid thus speeds up the the production of the inflorescences. I've read several scientific papers lately on GA3 and it appears the plants can actually get "hooked" on the chemical in much the same way a drug addict is hooked on whatever it is they use. If over applied the plant needs the "fix" in order to produce more inflorescences. I find this regrettable since many people write to ask why their Anthurium refuses to produce "blooms" any longer. But that could well be the reason. Now, let me say right up front I'm not a scientist. I just communicate with a bunch of scientists. One guy that heard of what I had learned got very angry and began to write nasty notes because he apparently is a firm believer in the use of GA3. If you use it, no problem. You own the plants. But since I value my plants and also enjoy seeing them produce their inflorescences in the same time and season nature has dictated I would never consider using the stuff on any of my nearly 100 species of Anthurium.
Thanks for the additional info. It's very fascinating but does not shock me, people always want to manipulate stuff :-) As for the update on my plant. It doesn't appear anything has gotten worse, but on the same token it doesn't appear anything has gotten better. After re-potting it to a combo of peat moss and miracle grow moisture control potting mix, switching to nothing but distilled water and watering it very thoroughly about once a week(When the soil is dry), no new dead looking growth at all however it doesn't appear there is any new growth either. Seems almost like the plant is frozen in time. Do I just need to be more patient?
Patience is always a good thing for plants... I'd like to point out that I got mine from Home Depot as well, I've included a pic of it...I think I've had it for a year and a half now (except for the fertilizer that came in the potting mix I haven't fertilized mine at all)... mine blooms fairly regularly for me. I'd be careful not to over-water if you're keeping it in a plastic container. Remember that in nature most Anthuriums are epiphytic (live in trees) and as such their roots like a bit more atmosphere than your standard potted plant. Waterlogged, soggy, or consistently wet soil could cause weakened root systems which could invite fungus problems....that's why I potted mine in terra cotta... I do have to water a bit more often but it breathes. Plastic pots aren't bad, just let your watering routines match what you're using. No new growth you say? There's nothing more frustrating than investing time and effort into something and seeing no progress... First two things I'd suspect are: 1) Weak root system: If the plant can't take in what it needs to grow it's not going to grow. You've already elimintated the possibility of damage caused by hard water so you might check how often you water it or if you might be fertilizing too strongly or too often. Also some epiphytic plants are sensitive to Urea contained in many fertilizers. I'm not sure if Anthuriums are sensitive or not but it's a thought... and there are some urea-free fertilizers on the market though it may take some hunting to find a supplier. Dyna-grow makes a line of such fertilizers. 2) Light (once again)..... While you've found that direct sun will singe an Anthurium that doesn't mean that they're a deep-shade plant. They do need Bright light, but it needs to be indirect. Low light will produce leggy growth, if it doesn't stop growth entirely and will certainly prevent the plant from blooming. The point must also be made that every plant needs a night-time. Plants use the day-time to photosynthesize their food and then consume (metabolize) that food at night (the dark reaction). Without both, proper life processes are disrupted. So be sure that it's not in any rooms at night that are well-lit by artificial lights...especially flourescent lighting which many growers use to grow plants like african violets. This is not to say that you have to live in the dark at night, but a substantial difference between day and night-time light levels produces better results.
Photopro - I know exactly what you mean. I ran into that problem in highschool with some orchids I bought from a company called Gubler... it was only after i'd purchased 5 or 6 of their plants and had them for a couple of years sans blooms that a fellow hobbyist enlighted me to what was going on. As to meristem culture (the cloning you were talking about) there's nothing dishonorable about that practice. Some strains that are bred to tolerate conditions the species plant won't tolerate sometimes take decades of careful selective breeding to achieve... once there the grower uses meristem culture to create genetic duplicates of that strain. Without the meristem process the grower would be looking at probably another decade of plant rearing only to have a fraction of the progeny possess the same attributes the breeder was going for. With meristem culture that same decade spent would yield 100% of the progeny in possession of desired attributes. This is common-place in the orchid hobby because most species of orchids take 7 years to go from seed to first bloom.
Generally good advice. Bright indirect light is almsot always the best for Anthurium specimens with the exception of species that have a velvety leaf blade. Those do prefer dimmer light. The plant in the photos on this page are not in that group. I've just spent the last two days completely rewriting the article I noted earlier in this thread since it has been added to so many times over the last two years much of the information was repetative. I think readers will now be able to find the information they seek much more easily. http://www.exoticrainforest.com/Grow or Growing Anthurium species.html
:-o A velvety leafed Anthurium? Sounds neat! I have a room in my apartment in which a closet plant thrives and blooms, maybe one hour per day of bright indirect... the rest of the day it's pretty shady in there. I might like to put one of the velvety-leaf anthuriums in there... obviously nowhere near the window, that's full of masdevallias, but i've got an end table about eight feet from that window that gets decent ambiente light... any suggestions for species? I'm always after the unusual specimens... Just had a look at your page - awesome!! One day I'll have a greenhouse that looks something like that.... Informative article and lovely photos...
There are quite a few velvet leaf Anthurium which can be found in Anthurium section Cardiolonchium. The velutinous or velvety appearance is a result of the leaf surface being covered with a short, fine and densely silky pubescence (hair). You can also easily find velutinous Philodendron species. Some of the species are: Anthurium angamarcanum also known as Anthurium marmoratum (a synonym), Anthurium clarinervium, Anthurium forgetii (not really a species but a horticultural name), Anthurium magnificum, Anthurium papillilaminum, Anthurium nigrescens, Anthurium regale, Anthurium sagittatum and Anthurium warocqueanum. More difficult to locate species include Anthurium rubrinervium, Anthurium breviscapum, Anthurium coripatense, Anthurium incurvatum, and Anthurium versicolor . Some of the plants in this list are easily bought while others are very pricey. Best to keep them in a dim but not dark location. They all require a very porous soil mix which is similar to the rain forest. The soil needs peat, orchid bark, charcoal, a bit of gravel, cut up sphagnum moss and decayed vegetation to make the plant stay happy. Don't try to use regular potting soil! The soil should remain damp.
Thanks for that... I'll have to go out and grab some peat....out of curiousity, could I sub the broken down sphagnum from repotting my masdevallias for the peat? I don't think it's quite as dense as whole peat though definitely more so than whole sphagnum. I promise I won't use any potting soil. I compost my plant trimmings so I'll use that for the decayed vegetation...
Should work fine. Emily Coletti who is in charge of the entire aroid collection at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis gave me her mixture. MOBOT has the largest collection of aroid species of any garden in the world. Although we mix our soil based on how the species grows in nature, as a result of Emily's work we primarily use 50% Miracle Grow Moisture Control Potting Soil combined with 20% high quality peat moss, 20% orchid potting media that has hard wood, charcoal and gravel mixed with 10% Perlite™ that is combined and mixed thoroughly with a hand full or two of cedar mulch along with finely cut spahgnum moss. If you have some good compost feel free to add it. We recently had a large walnut tree removed from our yard and once the stump was ground we composted the remains which are now being added to our soil. Extra orchid charcoal is also an excellent additive since it helps to purify the soil. All of these ingredients should be mixed as thoroughly as possible.
Good, thank you - So I need to go out and get some charcoal then. I've got tons of orchid bark laying around.... I think I'm gonna start with Anthurium crystallinum. From it's cultural requirements it seems like it'll do well for me and it isn't massive like some of the other species. If it does indeed do well I'll likely add to the collection I seem to be starting.
You can use aquarium charcoal as well. The one thing about Anthurium crystallinum is it doesn't like low light. Every time I tried to move it to dimmer light it almost dies. I keep it hung where it gets constant brightly diffused light. Otherwise it is easy to grow.
I was actually checking out clarinervium when I happened across chrystallinum. I did like it as well it just seemed as though it's habit was a bit larger than chrystallinum... I can give it a shot though...it's one of the 'dim, not dark'-growing species which is what I was after.
If you're looking for a dim light plant try one of these: Anthurium angamarcanum Anthurium magnificum, Anthurium regale Anthurium sagittatum Anthurium warocqueanum All the others require more light. A great idea would be to contact Enid at Natural Selections Exotics in Fort Lauderdale. Her website is easy to find. Tell her what type of plant you want and she can supply it.
