Anthurium Care and Acclimatization
Growing Tips for the New Anthurium Parent
By now you have likely unwrapped your gorgeous Anthurium and are praying to the plant gods that you don’t kill it. Your plant, while it (should) look fabulous, is feeling a little stressed from being shipped in a dark box. Just like you would like a nap or a relaxing bath after a long trip, your very sensitive Anthurium needs to acclimate before being placed in its more permanent location. After acclimating, growing an Anthurium requires a lot of flexibility, tweaking and experimenting with what growing conditions work best for you.
Not all Anthuriums are created equal however. The common Anthuriums that you will find in the grocery store that are prized for their bright red flowers are notably easier to take care of than their moodier, velvelty rare-plant counterparts. The velvets, and the highly sought after textured Anthurium Luxurians and its hybrids are what I am describing the care routine for in this article. Here’s what to do over the next couple weeks with your new beauty so you don’t have to rely on the plant gods hearing your calls for help in order to succeed:
Step One: Acclimatization:
The key to pampering your rare Anthurium upon arrival is humidity. Put this baby (or babies if you bought multiple) in as high of humidity as you can, under a cloche, in a large clear storage box, in an IKEA cabinet, or in a grow tent. The key is, wherever you place it, to make sure the humidity is between 70-100% in this temporary enclosure. You can test the humidity using a cheap little hygrometer available on Amazon. Keep it in this high humidity enclosure for at least a week until it recovers from the shock of being shipped.
Water your plant during this time only if the potting medium appears to dry out a bit (you’ll notice the substrate on top turn a lighter brown color as it starts to dry or use a moisture meter to double check the moisture). Then, continue to water every 3-4 days, or whenever it is almost, but not completely dry. After a week or two, move your plant into its more permanent location. If its permanent location is significantly less humid than its last location (for example 50% Relative Humidity) transition it gradually or your plant will suffer from the shock and may look like wilted spinach one day.
Step Two: Choosing Your Permanent Growing Conditions:
The following are the various conditions that you must take into consideration when growing your Anthurium:
Location and Humidity: It is always helpful, but not necessary to know the growing conditions of your plant prior to arriving at your house. This is more for your own learning purposes, not because you need to imitate those exact conditions in order to be successful. If your plant is from me, it was growing in a grow tent at 60-80% humidity 1-2 feet under a T8 grow light bulb with fans running during the day for airflow. Imagine a bright, humid, wind tunnel. Humid home environments (if you live by a large body of water), or rooms with humidifiers and fans, grow tents (like those from AC Infinity/Vivosun) or cabinets (like IKEA Milsbo cabinets) with fans for air circulation will make the most ideal environment long term for Anthuriums. 60-80% humidity is ideal, but some hardier hybrids and shiny-leafed Anthuriums do fine acclimating to 20-50% humidity. Here’s a link to some of the grow tents and equipment I personally use.
Growing Medium: Typically, people will grow Anthuriums in a very chunky Aroid mix or in a semi-hydro setup with a substrate like Lechuza pon, although that is an entirely different way of growing. Some growers in Florida grow their plants in thick peat (you know, the stuff that looks like brown cake). If your Anthurium comes like this, you will want to change the substrate right away (it likely also has fungus gnat larvae in it as it stays damp for long periods of time). It’s also possible to grow Anthuriums in sphagnum moss. I personally prefer a chunky mix, which reduces the possibility of overwatering. These are the ingredients I use for my Anthurium mix.
Watering: When growing in a conventional aroid/ Anthurium mix the key is to not let your mix dry out completely. That’s all you need to tell yourself. If you received your plant from me, it is growing in a premium chunky Anthurium mix comprised mainly of coco chips, pine bark chips, tree fern fiber, charcoal, perlite and a tiny bit of peat moss. In order to keep this moist in a relatively warm (70-80F) higher-humidity environment (60-80%) you will need to thoroughly water your plant roughly every 4 days. However, if your plant’s environment is warmer or cooler, more or less humid, you may have to water slightly more or less frequently than this to make sure it doesn’t dry out! Chances are though, every 4 days will be the sweet spot. This is a lot of watering! It’s for this reason that I personally prefer to grow my Anthuriums in Lechuza pon in self watering pots. Growing Anthuriums this way reduces your watering down to every couple weeks! However, know that semi-hydroponic watering does involve a learning curve and you will learn how to adjust the pH of your nutrient water. You can do it though. I believe in you! I speak a lot about semi-hydro growing and substrates in my book if you want a simple introduction to it.
Air-Flow: The more fans you use, the harder it will be to keep the area humid, but the less bacterial blight and fungal problems you will have. Physan and Phyton anti-fungal / anti-bacterial sprays prevent and treat fungal and bacterial blight. You can purchase Physan 20 and Phyton 27 as concentrates on Amazon and mix them in individual spray bottles with water to use on your plants. They are toxic, so make sure you use PPE when spraying them. Phyton 27 is systemic and used as a treatment for fungal and bacterial infections and Physan 20 is used by many growers more frequently as a topical preventative. Now, don’t ask me why, but despite what I just wrote, if you put your Anthurium in a propagation box with 100% humidity and zero air flow, it will grow perfectly…making everything I just said, and what everyone says about air-flow and Anthuriums, false. Murphy’s Law? I don’t make the rules. Problem is - you definitely don’t have a plastic box large enough to fit all of your mature sized Anthuriums, and who wants to grow that way?!
Nutrients: Nutrient regiments for Anthuriums could be its own e-Book. I use these nutrients. I adjust the pH of my nutrient solution (aka my fertilizer water) to be in the ideal range of 5.5-6.5 by adding the appropriate amount of “pH down” liquid solution after I mix together my filtered water and fertilizer and check it with a pH meter. This ensures optimal nutrient absorption by the plant and will reduce the amount of yellow spots on my Anthurium’s leaves that would be due to nutrient deficiency (if spots are due to pests or fungal or bacterial issues obviously pH-ing my nutrient solution won’t help that). For more help on the topic of creating nutrient solutions, pH-ing water, and water filtration / RO water, de-chlorinization, etc, I encourage you to join the Anthurium facebook groups. There’s a wealth of information within them.
Light: The more light you give it, the faster it will grow. The less light, the darker the leaves but the slower it will grow. Check out my post on Growlights.
Experiment and learn and have fun. You will know it’s time to repot it up a pot size when the roots start filling up the pot / wrapping around the inside of the pot / popping out on top of the pot/ peeking out the bottom holes. The roots will speak to you!
Please don’t forget to tag me in progress photos on social media if you partake. This hobby is so much fun because of the people we get to connect with and the plant progress we get to celebrate and share (as well as the hardships). Keep in touch and go on with your bad planty self.
For more Anthurium growing information, and to learn how to propagate and pollinate them, check out my book, The Ultimate Guide to Houseplant Propagation .
XOXO,
Lindsay
