Anthurium Care Guide

Anthurium is the largest genus in the aroid family by a wide margin — more than a thousand described species, distributed from Mexico to northern Argentina — and the collector market has settled on three of its shapes: the velvet-leaved species with quilted, near-black foliage, the long pendent strap-leaved climbers, and the smaller bird's-nest forms with wavy margins. What buyers pay for is leaf texture. A crystallinum or a waroqueanum is bought for the way light falls across the blade, not for a flower, and the price of a specimen tracks the leaf rather than the pot. That is also why the genus moves through the trade in single plants and small consignments rather than flats: nobody buys twelve identical anthuriums, they buy one good one and a second that is better.

Growing Anthurium

• LightBright indirect light; velvet anthuriums want more of it than a papillilaminumIn practice that means an east window, or a position a metre or two back from a south window behind a blind. The velvet-leaved forms take more direct morning sun than the plainer species, but midday summer sun scorches a leaf in under an hour.
• WaterLet the top 2 cm of the mix dry between wateringsTwo centimetres is shallow — about a finger joint. Check it with a finger or a moisture meter rather than a calendar, because a chunky mix in a warm room dries in three days and the same mix in a cool room takes a week. Soak it thoroughly, then let it drain.
• Humidity60% – 80% relative humidity once acclimatisedThe nursery runs at 70% – 85% RH and the plant settles into 60% – 80% indoors. Below that the leaf edges dry and each new leaf emerges smaller than the last. Group the pots, or stand one on wet gravel, and never mist a velvet leaf — water sitting on it marks the surface.
• SubstrateChunky aroid mix — bark, perlite and coco coirAnthurium roots want air as much as water, so the mix has to stay open: bark, perlite and coco coir in roughly equal parts, with a handful of charcoal or pumice if you have it. A dense peat mix holds water against the crown and rots the stem base.
• Temperature18 °C – 28 °CHold it in that band year round and the plant never stops putting out leaves. Under 15 °C growth stalls and the roots go dormant; above 30 °C in still air the leaves flag. Keep it off cold glass and away from a radiator.
• PropagationSeed or division of an established plantCuttings are unreliable: a stem cut without a growing tip usually sits and then rots. Most collectors divide a clump once it fills the pot, or raise plants from fresh seed, which stays viable for only a few weeks. Division is the safer route for a single plant.

Velocity is the thing that separates the velvet species from the strap-leaved climbers. A crystallinum or a magnificum grows a leaf, hardens it, and waits; two leaves a season is a good year, and the plant will burn or drop an older leaf if the light or the water is wrong while the new one is still soft. The pendent species — waroqueanum is the obvious one — grow faster and further but want to hang, because a leaf allowed to lie flat on a shelf loses the shape that makes it worth buying. Both groups forgive dry air far better than soggy mix. If you get one thing right with this genus, make it the drainage.

Bare-root export and transit

Export is where the genus divides again. The velvet-leaved species carry soft, broad blades that mark easily, so each plant is lifted, washed free of substrate, dipped in an anti-fungal and bactericide solution and wrapped so the leaf never presses on itself. The sterile Chilean AAA sphagnum around the roots is damp, never wet, because wet sphagnum against a soft stem for a week is rot. Each plant then travels in an EPS-insulated box inside a corrugated carton, and that box holds an internal buffer of 18 °C – 24 °C at 70% – 85% RH against an airport ramp. Sealed, it keeps condition for 7 – 10 days. Pot into chunky mix on arrival and keep the plant shaded and humid for a fortnight while the new roots take hold.

Questions buyers ask