Caladium, flashy colorful leafage

Heart-shaped leaves up to 12 inches across, painted white with greenish veins or flushed salmon-pink, make caladium one of the boldest foliage plants you can grow indoors. It wants warmth, moisture and plenty of light without direct sun; meet that one condition and the leaves only grow larger and brighter.

Caladium at a glance

Name	Caladium
Common	elephant ears
Family	Araceae
Type	indoor plant
Height	36 to 40 inches (0.8 to 1 metre) indoors, 13 feet (4 metres) in the wild
Exposure	Very well-lit
Soil	soil mix
Foliage	evergreen

Planting and repotting a Caladium plant

Upon purchasing, if the pot is too small, proceed to repot the plant so that it may grow adequately.

Container caladium: how to re-pot it:

After the first planting, every 2 or 3 years and preferably in spring, repot your caladium in a pot of a slightly larger size.

• Caladium roots hate having too much water.
  Double-check that the pot has a hole in the bottom.
  Increase drainage with a layer of gravel or clay pebbles along the bottom of the pot, to make water flow through more easily.
• Good soil mix is needed.
  Caladium, when it lives indoors, needs soil mix because that is the only source for the nutrients it feeds on.

Where to place your Caladium at home

The best place to set up your caladium is near a window that lets a lot of light through, but isn’t in overly direct sunlight, especially during the warmest hours of the day.

• It is vulnerable to excess sun that might dry the plant up.
  The more light a caladium receives, the nicer its foliage.
• Absolutely avoid setting it near heat sources such as radiators, because moisture is what this tropical plant needs most.

Ideal temperatures are around 68 to 70° F (20 to 21° C).

Propagating Caladium

Multiply your caladium by dividing the clump. This is best done during the dormant season, in winter.

Make sure to break the clump apart without wounding the tubers if you want to propagate more than one new plant. Indeed, roots form tubers from the base of each leaf cluster.

Some Caladium varieties, like taro, are edible when prepared correctly! Most aren’t, however.

Set each division with its knobby growth buds facing upward and cover it with soil mix; shoots from an inverted tuber must reorient and grow around it, which can delay emergence.

Trimming and caring for Caladium

At the end of winter, if your caladium has lost many leaves, feel free to cut the foliage back entirely, this will stimulate the sending of new shoots and will rejuvenate your plant: you’ll have lush, fresh leaves again.

Remove damaged leaves regularly by snipping them off at the base.

On aroids grown for their leaves, such as Aglaonema, Dieffenbachia and Caladium, snip off the arum-like flower spikes as soon as they appear so the plant’s energy goes into foliage.

Watering your Caladium

Caladium is a greenhouse plant that appreciates heat and moisture. Regular but moderate watering is thus called for.

All year long, and especially during summer, spray water on the leaves to recreate the moisture levels of its natural habitat.

Watering in spring and summer

Keep the soil mix a bit moist and check that water drains properly.

Add leaf plant liquid fertilizer every 8 to 15 days during the growing phase.

• Spray the leaves on a regular basis with calcium-free water.

Watering your Caladium in fall and winter

Reduce watering and wait for the soil to be dry before watering again.
Stop adding fertilizer.

Typical Caladium diseases

Most diseases impacting the plant are those usually infecting indoor plants, like red spider mite, aphids and scale insects.

• Check leaf undersides and leaf stalk joints for pale stippling and tiny mites, as spider mites usually colonise these sheltered spots first; fine webbing generally appears later, signalling an advanced infestation.
• Empty the saucer after every watering, since caladiums are prone to tuber rot when their pots sit in standing water and the soil stays waterlogged rather than merely evenly moist.

Learn more about the Caladium plant

There are two main types of Caladium plants:

• Strap-leaf: dense clumps, shorter overall, slightly more cold hardy. Leaves are narrower and sharper.
• Fancy-leaf: taller growth, with heart-shaped leaves that grow quite large if well fed and watered (12 inches or 30 cm!)

Both have beautiful cultivars. For instance, the Fancy-leaved “Candidum” is white with greenish veins, and the ‘Pink Gem’ is a short, salmon-colored strap-leaved variety.

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Strap-leaf or fancy-leaf: which caladium to choose

Caladiums fall into two groups that behave quite differently in a pot. Leaf shape, size and hardiness are what separate them.

Both groups have beautiful cultivars, so the choice comes down to the space you have and the leaf shape you prefer.

Popular caladium cultivars at a glance

The tubers sold in garden centres and bulb catalogues are nearly all named cultivars, each with its own leaf shape and colouring. The table below sets out the ones you are most likely to find, with the light each one puts up with.

Smart tip about caladium

A fabulous indoor plant, caladium is nonetheless poisonous. The entire plant from root to leaf is toxic both if ingested and in case of prolonged skin contact.

It must be handled with gloves to avoid risking intoxication.

 

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