Anthurium beginners start here top 5 easy anthurium to grow in ambient conditions

There comes a point in all of our plant journeys where we start to hear the tempting call of Anthurium, which is both exciting and terrifying. I was so intimidated to get my first Anthurium, I still remember it very clearly. I got my first one in 2019, it was an Anthurium clarinervium, which was stunning and a dream plant for me at the time. I got it while I was visiting Seattle and she almost didn't make it back across the border with me because they wanted to burn her. That's a story for another day though. She ended up making it back with me but I was so nervous about caring for this plant. I was helicopter parenting on another level. I don't have her anymore but she didn't croak, she actually did really well. I ended up rehoming her during one of my mini moves. Anthurium are way more approachable than what I knew back then and I'm hoping to ease some of your stress by recommending five of my tried and true Anthurium that I highly recommend for beginners and they're fun ones too. You can grow some really beautiful Anthurium as a beginner. I think that Anthurium can be a very overwhelming genus largely because of the names. There are a lot of different hybrids, people also invent names for Anthurium hybrids, which may be different from a name that someone else calls them. It can be very very confusing. When you see a cross or a hybrid Anthurium name, the way that it works, the first name is the mother or the seed parent and the second name is the father or the pollen parent. So the mother plant is the one that is actually growing the berries and where the seeds for the new baby plants come off of. The Anthurium world definitely can feel a little bit elitist with all of the different plants and breeders and lineages. My goal is to break the barrier into Anthurium so that you feel comfy getting started. Some reasons that Anthurium are not scary aka some things that I absolutely love about them. You don't need a moss pool but you can still get some huge leaves. This is something that I have really come to appreciate about Anthurium because moss poles, although I love my climbers, they can be a lot of maintenance but Anthurium are pretty, I mean sometimes you need to add some stakes but overall they're a lot less maintenance than a moss pole. Number two, I love the way that the new leaves balloon in. So they start as little tiny baby leaves and then they slowly keep expanding until they've reached their full size and start to harden off. It is so satisfying and cool to watch and you usually get to watch some very beautiful colors come in as well. Three, there is a lot of variety in the genus if you choose the right plants. I know that when I first started getting into Anthurium I felt like they all looked the same and that kind of made it seem a little bit boring to me but now that I've grown a lot of different kinds I can see that they are very different and I can kind of figure out where my tastes lie. Kind of related to that but number four, you can get some very dark foliage which is one of my favorite traits in a house plant. So if you are also into goth plants or almost black leaves then Anthurium is definitely the genus for you. Five, they have very chonky resilient roots which I really appreciate because I don't get nervous about repotting them. They're very resilient in that way and it's just satisfying to see a big chonky udon noodle root. And six, it is very possible to cross-pollinate different Anthurium that you have in your collection and create your own babies if that's what you're into. Me, I get overwhelmed with all the plants I already have so I don't do too much of that but I have done it a couple times and it is very rewarding. Yes, some Anthurium are quite finicky and require higher humidity to grow properly but the ones I'm going to be sharing with you today are all just grown in regular room humidity which for me is around 50% but I do think that they could go lower if you are in the 30 to 40% range. I think it's entirely possible as long as you stay on top of watering. This isn't a care video by any means but I will say that most of my Anthurium are grown in the Molly's Aeroid mix. Like I said, 50% humidity. Of course, I do have others that I grow inside my cabinets but we're going to be talking about those ones today. I'll mention lighting individually when I show the plants. To feed all of my Anthurium, I use the General Hydroponics Flora series with CalMag and about once a month, I also use Kelpie. I'll start off by saying that in general, any Crystallinum, Magnificum, or Clarinervium or hybrids of those are usually very beginner-friendly. People also often recommend Forgetii as a beginner Anthurium but I actually disagree with that because I've always struggled with Forgetii and hybrids of it as well. I just find it to be a little bit more finicky. The leaves are prone to tearing. Maybe that's a me thing but I've also heard other people say the same. I don't have any of those to show in this video but I do know that they are typically very easy growing. I think any of those would be a solid choice. Okay, so let's get into talking about the plants. I'm gonna start with what I consider the easiest Anthurium in my collection. It is also my favorite and yeah, I was gonna say the most- well no, is it my favorite? I have too many favorites. It's definitely the easiest, I feel, so let me go grab it. And that is my Anthurium Politiflorum which is absolutely huge so I obviously had to stand up to show you this one. Now, I was very nervous for this plant because I thought, oh it looks so cool, it must be hard to take care of but it is, like I said, the easiest Anthurium in my collection. And one of the most beautiful with these long strappy leaves. It is ridiculous just how long the leaves are on this plant. And something that I really love about the Politiflorum is that it is velvety also so you get a really beautiful shimmery sheen when the sun hits this plant. I think this one is the longest. It's honestly almost as tall as me. This is a pendant Anthurium obviously, so you can see it grows down and out of the pot and then the new growth comes in at the bottom of this, I don't know, vine thing? The base of it? This plant is extremely low maintenance. It lives on top of my IKEA greenhouse cabinet and it gets light just from the- it doesn't have a grow light shining directly on it but there's lights inside the cabinet and then there's lights on the plant shelf beside the cabinet and this plant is kind of in between those so it just gets the remnants or like the ambient light from those grow lights and a little bit of natural light but it is pulled back pretty far from the window. But if it's a really sunny day in the fall or winter then the sun will come in and hit it but in general I would say that this gets about medium indirect light for the most part and it really does not complain at all about that. I truly think that this is one of the most unique plants that anybody can have in their home or in their house plant collection and I truly just cannot recommend it enough. Try to back up more so that I can fit it all in the frame. When I tell you that this plant does not get any special care whatsoever, I am so serious about that. This plant is extremely easy going in the sense that I have underwatered it, I have over watered it, I don't actually lift it out of the cover pot when I water. I just blindly water it because if it gets a little bit too much it's okay, if it's a little bit too dry it's okay. It just really is incredibly easy going and does not complain about anything. Low maintenance but high impact so I love it so much. Okay next I'm gonna go ahead and talk about this one. This is my current obsession. This is my dorayaki silver and red crystal linum hybrid and I actually grew this from a seed which is crazy just to see how far it's come and since being in the seedling stage this has just been such a hearty plant. I have never had a single issue with it. It has gone through neglect, it has gone through being in a location where it barely got any light when I had it on the calyx shelf and it would get forgotten down there. It's just, it's gone through some things so I can confidently say that this is just such an easy plant to grow. I soon realized how beautiful this plant is so now it has a prime location under my Rousseau plant care grow light and it seems to be loving that as you can see with this beautiful leaf that it has coming in but it has tolerated some unfavorable conditions before that. I love that this one is more compact as well. It doesn't have super long petioles. I love the bold silver veining on this one and the round leaves like it is just so adorable. Yeah I have really really grown to love this one. It is probably one of my favorite plants in my houseplant collection in general and I know I say every plant is my favorite but you guys they kind of are because I get rid of the ones that aren't my favorites. This one actually, woo, look at those. Juicy juicy. Yeah there's some water sitting in the bottom of this cover pot but oh my gosh the roots are so pretty. They're pink. They're so pink. Oh my goodness even the roots are cute on her. Imagine being this stunning. I was just going to show you that I am using a pot extender. That's something that I do for some of my Anthurium. Once the stem starts getting a little bit long then it just offers more space for it to root in but yeah this is another one that can tolerate underwatering a little bit of over watering and is just generally so easy to grow. Something that I love about this one as well is that I don't get a lot of cosmetic leaf damage even if they get knocked around a little bit because Anthurium leaves are notorious for getting dinged up. This one seems to do pretty well. I did put I think my scissors through this older one here and it started to crisp at the bottom because it is this leaf is probably a year old already but I remember being so mad about this hole down here because I accidentally stabbed it with my shears and it was putting out a nice beautiful leaf. But yeah I just I think that this is so beautiful and I also love the overlapping sinus on this one. It is just so cute. I can't get enough of it. Oh I should say where these are from as well. The Politiflorum I got from North Shore Tropicals years ago now. Actually I've had these all for years at this point. This one I got from Cartel Down. I have a couple of videos where I unboxed and then gave updates on these. I can link that down below if you're interested on in seeing a little bit of the journey. But yeah that's where this one came from and it just turned out to be such a great plant. Okay next I am going to share with you probably one of the more exciting Anthurium in my collection. I know that this one is such a crowd favorite in the houseplant community. This is Anthurium King of Spades and it's known for putting out a really beautiful big round leaf and insane colors when the new leaves are growing out. I think that this plant is very easy to grow. Mine does not require any type of supplemental humidity. It's perfectly happy being in room conditions. However it is a very slow grower and I know that that's not just mine. A lot of people have this experience with this plant but I probably haven't gotten a new leaf in almost a year on this one and I've cut back some of the older ones as well so I just have these two. But I have to be very careful here because I would be so mad if I knocked this. We have a new leaf on the way right now. Oh my goodness it's gonna be a Christmas miracle. I'm so excited about this. I have been babying this plant. I don't baby my plants okay. I'm very um okay sorry my battery died and I moved things around a little bit here. I give my plants what they need but I also have a bit of a fend for yourself mentality in terms of providing extra care like daily care um but with this one I have been spritzing this new little leaf to make sure that it comes out smoothly and um just babying it a little more than I do my other plants because I am just so extremely excited to see that. I will definitely be taking photos and sharing updates here and on my Instagram so stay tuned for that new leaf but um yeah it truly feels like an event and it's totally worth the wait. I'm happy to have these older leaves to look at while I'm waiting for newer ones to come in. This has also flowered for me a couple of times and I've taken the pollen from it but it's in the freezer. I haven't done anything with it. This is in pretty much the same setup as the last one I showed you with the pot extender there to give it a little bit of extra vertical space. I honestly could stack another one on here as well because there's a lot of vine that's growing out so maybe I'll do that too so we can get some extra roots going to turbocharge it a little bit but yeah I really wanted to highlight this one because I feel like people maybe see it and think that it requires some type of specialized care but um it really doesn't. It is just as easy going as a lot of my just like philodendron and stuff like that so yeah don't be scared of it if it's one that's on your wish list. This lives next to the dorayaki under the russo plant care grow light as well and it seems very happy there. I have grown this in natural light but I think I've gotten the best results under grow lights. I think it just appreciates the consistency of that especially where I am it can be quite dark at certain times of the year um but yeah I guess that's all I have to say about this one again it's not too picky with watering it dries out sometimes it gets over watered sometimes because that's just kind of what all my plants have to deal with with me just blindly watering um but yeah it doesn't seem to mind it has such a thick leaf too like it's giving cardboard vibes for sure so yeah he's a tough one okay another one that I have to stand for actually I can scoot him up a little bit this beautiful plant is my anthurium luxurians hybrid this is a hybrid of anthurium luxurians with crystallinum and magnificum this is probably my most popular anthurium it's the one that gets commented on the most and for good reason because look at the size of it it's huge and it's dark and textured and so beautiful this one is tied for my favorite with the polydiflorum but this actually might be my number one favorite if I really had to choose between them I actually grew this from a seedling with like the tiniest the a leaf the size of a fingernail and now it's grown into this a beast and such an easy plant I do have a million stakes in here keeping the petioles all close together or else she would be flopping around a little bit but um yeah this anthurium is incredible and I'm gonna be recommending maybe not any luxurians hybrid because I'm sure that there are some that are more difficult but any luxurians magnificum luxurians crystallinum like I said mine is a luxurians um crystal mag um but I used to have a luxurians magnificum and that one was really beautiful as well it just didn't quite have the same depth of color as this one does which is why I decided to keep this one of the two but honestly whatever you can find in that realm I'm sure it's going to be an absolutely stunning plant and not cause you many problems the only thing that this plant will do is brown a little bit on the older leaves but really that's being nitpicky because I mean come on it's an old leaf like who really cares that's not anything super unusual I think that that comes from the luxurians though I think they're kind of prone to browning around the edges um so you can see this leaf is probably like it's probably quite old um like maybe a couple of years old over a year old for sure so that's nothing that really bothers me again this one tolerates underwatering overwatering I also don't really keep up with repotting as much as I should for any of these anthurium in this video so they're tolerant that way it can thrive in a low to medium light setting as well I have grown this in natural light quite a distance from the window as well um and right now where it sits it's in a similar it's actually right below the pallidiflorum so again it gets like ambient grow light lighting from the cabinet and from the bistro shelf beside it but it doesn't have its own grow light shining directly onto it so I think it's like a low to medium kind of situation but it's just such a statement plant like are you joking me this is so cool and I will never stop recommending it um or recommending similar hybrids to it if you have a luxurians hybrid that you really like leave me a comment because I would love to maybe get another one even though look at the size of this like where would I fit another plant like this I have no idea but um yeah the whole growing experience of this was so enjoyable at every size it was just such a beautiful plant and watching the colors of the new leaves come in like this is another one where it just feels like an event when it pushes out a new leaf because a plant this size is not pushing out a new leaf very often but yeah it's just perfect and I am in love with it so okay lastly yes I have another strappy anthurium to show you they're one of my favorite types of plants um I really am wanting to get the wind lingeri I was talking about how I potentially wanted one and then someone left a comment about how it's their favorite plant and they really think that I would love it and I should get one and they're really selling me on it so now it is actively on my wish list but um the one that I'm going to show you right now that I've been growing for a good few years now is my anthurium vitreofolium and um this has really filled out I was actually just looking back on an older video the other day and seeing just how much this has grown let me try to get better lighting here on this side maybe yeah it's really cool to see this thing just turn into like a little shrub that I have hanging in the window I feel like it gives such a cool jungly vibe and of course it is beginner friendly easy going I don't do anything special for it it gets natural light it lives in a south window that's a little bit covered so it doesn't get blasted with direct sun but it is a pretty high light location um and what I actually did was cut this plant up once upon a time a couple years ago and now I have multiple growing in here to make it look more full so I think there is one two three four plants in here potentially and um yeah it just spits out new leaves like crazy there's two baby leaves coming at the top here one two and there's another one right here that's coming out and there's probably more honestly because it's just always putting out something it seems I will say with this one I do get some imperfect leaves so like this I guess it got a little bit torn at some point but I don't really mind because I see this as like I'm not really looking at the leaves individually I'm looking I'm just getting the impact of the plant overall as like a big full um hanging basket here one of the big differences between this one and the politiflorum is that this one doesn't have a velvety finish like the politiflorum does so that's something that I definitely prefer about that one it has that striking vein down the middle and then it has a shimmeriness to it in the light which I think it's really gorgeous and it's also a deeper green this one at least mine is a little bit lighter maybe if you grew it in a darker spot it would have darker foliage but it's still beautiful and I just love the impact of it I just think that this is such a cool plant to have chilling in your house like it looks crazy it has this one that's really long um and I hope it puts out another one like this I'm excited to see what this looks like in two years from now because I think it's just going to continue to fill out I'll probably have to repot it at some point this one definitely dries out a lot I feel like all of my hanging plants definitely experience being bone dry more than the rest of the plants in the house because I don't know I guess they just require the extra step of reaching up to water them even though this one's not that high I feel like it can take a minute for these to really get going but once they do they just they really give her so yeah and this one is flowering a lot lately as well um it's just really enjoyable to grow and I feel like I haven't appreciated it as much as I should like it's just kind of hit me recently how cool this plant is starting to look so yeah I'm glad to be able to highlight it in this video and there's also the variegated one which is um one of the more accessible variegated anthurium if not the most accessible one like I see it pretty often and I think that it looks really cool and I kind of want one now even if I just added it into this pot like the next time I repot it I think that that would be really fun so perhaps another one for my wish list I don't know um but yeah it's a great anthurium honestly so that is five of the easiest anthurium in my collection like I said they all live in room humidity they all can tolerate variable conditions and care and I just think that they are beautiful plants that anybody could appreciate so I really hope that you enjoyed I am just I don't know I have so many anthurium right now that are putting out new leaves and it just has me in such an anthurium mood like I'm kind of obsessed with them right now so look forward to seeing more of my anthuriums in the future if you like this video don't forget to give it a thumbs up leave me a comment down below if you have any questions or comments I would love to chat with you thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one bye