Anthuriums! Bloom Encouragment

Hey, what's up garden friends? I'm here at Tropical Plant Party. How's everybody doing? I hope you're good. I'm great. Sitting outside looking at my anthirums and thought these would be fun to talk about. Anthirums are a really common house plant. Usually pretty affordable, easy to grow, and generally easy to find. At least for me where I live. Anthirums are a decent sized family of plants. There are a lot of different varieties. This right here is the most common. Comes in red, pink, and white. The full name on this is Anthurium andreanium. Anthurium. I have a bad habit of referring to these as anthirum. The name comes from the Greek words anthos, which means flower, and aura meaning a tail. This is referring to the tail. See the tail? Little tail in there. That's what that's about. These are an epithetic plant that are native to places like Venezuela and Ecuador. Epithetic means that the majority of the nutrients they take in is going to be from the air and not necessarily from the soil. So even though these are potted up in soil, it is a very loose draining mix. And because of them being epiphytes, you might want to repot these every couple years to help remove any minerals or salts that build up in their pots. Because if you want to keep these flowering consistently, they will flower nearly all year for you, potentially all year, if they're given enough moisture, fertilizer, and light. They are a shade plant, but indoors, shade doesn't mean a dark room. It generally means a bright room, but not in direct sun. Like, the sun doesn't need to come straight through a window and blaze onto it. And if they're getting too much sun, then you might see some discoloration on the leaves and on the flowers. Like, like right here. Mine got, this one got a little bit too much sun. The foliage is a little bit more dull. Not quite as dark green. Typically, you want dark green, glossy heart-shaped leaves on these guys. Being a tropical, they do not like cold temperatures, and they will do well for you in a humid environment, such as a well-lit bathroom. You can do some pretty cool things with these guys, too. I've seen them mounted on top of lava stone with their fun roots coming over the edges. You can put them into other arrangements, and they look pretty cool. Back to when I was talking about the humidity and stuff like that, though. Humidity and airflow are going to be kind of important here because they're an epithetic plant. You can put a layer of moss down on top of the soil to uphold some of that moisture in. Don't let them sit in their water for too terribly long, but they shouldn't be allowed to dry out for a long time either. You can kind of see those roots sticking up a little bit there. These are fairly easy to divide as well. Go ahead and pull them apart. You can use a sharp knife or a nice clean cut to break through the pieces in there, or gently loosen the roots and pull it apart. But a clean cut's always best. These are regarded as a very, very, very efficient air cleaning plant. Such fun, cheery, exotic flowers. Really, this pad right here is not the flower. The flowers are teeny tiny in here, and that's obviously one of the most endearing qualities about this plant. The flowers. I don't know if I've seen white ones, but the pink ones are fairly common. This one was pink until the sun got it. These guys are going to be hardy zones 11 to 12 with a height of 1 to 1 1⁄2 feet and a spread of about, I'd say, 8 inches to a foot. Flower freely throughout the year. Awesome yellow spadix in there. Part shade. Shade could be okay too, but they do need some light. Evergreen foliage. They really don't like to be under about 60 degrees. Like I said, if you have this and it stops flowering for you, maybe give it more light, some more fertilizing. Maybe once a month, just a general all-purpose houseplant fertilizer. Follow the instructions on the package. They're all different, and maybe water it more consistently or any one of those three or whatever combination that might be necessary. Generally, lighting and fertilizing makes a world of difference with these guys though. Not only are the flowers super cool, but even the flower buds as they emerge up from the center of the plants. Really colorful and really cool looking. So go ahead and summarize what I just talked about. To encourage these guys to bloom, you're going to want to go ahead and make sure that they're getting a good amount of light, but not direct sunlight. At least not for too long. If it is direct, it should be in the morning. So a bright room, a bright humid room is great for these guys. Fertilize on a regular schedule with just a general all-purpose plant fertilizer. Follow the directions on the package. Ensure that they're not sitting in water. They like to be watered on a regular basis, but it should run through. It shouldn't be sopping wet at all times. If you've had yours for an extremely long time that's not blooming, try and repot it. Go ahead and use a mix that has some coarse material in it so that it drains very quickly. You don't want it to retain too much moisture. A little bit of moss in there is okay. Even use like a general potting soil with these guys. That's fine as long as it's, you know, good with houseplants and drains freely without holding on to too much moisture. You can go ahead and add something to it. Perlite will help aerate it. Orchid bark, that breaks down over time. So don't forget to change that out every couple years. That can be helpful. The flowers on entheirms can last an extremely long time. One of the things that's so amazing about these plants, but you do still need to remove the old blooms. So for that, like see how this one right here is getting kind of crispy and sad looking. With that, I'm just going to go ahead all the way down to the base and snip that off. That is important too. Make sure you remove your spent blooms. You don't want the plant to think it doesn't need to flower because then it'll stop. These are also great in the house. You can cut them, put them in vases. They'll last a pretty long time in there too. Also, yes, this is a few days later. I hadn't brought these guys out yet, but I thought I should go back to them and talk about pruning them. But yeah, look at how big these are. They're huge. Got a little hole in there. Some storm damage. That's okay. What's your guys' experience growing entheirms? Enthuriums. Have you tried them? Blooming well for you. I like them a lot. I get some every year. They're fairly cheap. I picked these up, or this little guy was $4.99. I think this big one was $7.99. And then I either give them away or I keep them. But I wanted, I really liked these guys at the store for their prices. They were really full plants with big red flowers. They help draw your eye. Comment down below. Let's talk plant stuff. Don't forget to leave the video a thumbs up. It helps so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Subscribe as well. Upload multiple times a week. I'll link all my social media stuff down below, down there in the roots of the video. You can follow me and I'll follow you back. We can look at those plant pictures. It's a real good time. Fun quick video. I hope you like Enthyrums, or I hope you give them a try if you haven't. But that'll do it. I hope everybody's doing well. And as always, keep on growing.