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Are you searching for a houseplant that will add a pop of color and design to your home? Look no further than the Caladium.
Native to Central and Southern America, this stunning plant is known for its incredible beauty and vibrant leaves. As it grows from bulbs, it’s easy to care for and will quickly brighten up any indoor space.
But the Caladium isn’t just for indoor spaces – it’s also a perfect addition to tropical gardens. With over one thousand varieties, each with unique colored veins, edges, and textures, there’s a Caladium for every style and taste.
In this article, we’ll showcase the most popular Caladium varieties, so you can find the perfect one for your home or garden.
So, let’s dive in and explore the stunning world of Caladiums!
What Is Caladium?
Commonly known as Elephant’s Ear and Angel Wing Plants, the Caladium is a young tropical that is native to the open jungles and riverbank edges of South and Central America.
It has increasingly become the favorite of most collectors because of its unique bicolor foliage and variegated style, which are even more unique in rare species. Caladium is also very trendy for its large heart-shaped leaves and is a tropical plant ideal in garden beds, pots, or even window boxes.
The best time to grow these plants is during late spring or early summer in spots that get full or partial sunlight. But they can also survive shade, helping their popularity as houseplants that add stunning foliage and color to any home.
However, if you want your caladium species to thrive, you must keep their soil well-drained, moist, and full of nutrients, but keep the soil from becoming soggy to avoid root rot.
These plants do best when grown alongside other perennial flowers, such as impatiens, begonias, and ferns. Let’s quickly highlight the most common caladium varieties:
Most Popular Caladium Varieties
1. Pink Symphony (Caladium ‘Pink Symphony’)
Pink Symphony is the first on our list and one of the most popular caladiums. It is a caladium variety that will do best in pots when given partial sun and shade access and prefers acidic, well-drained, rich soil.
Also called strap-leaf Caladium, the pink symphony can tolerate more sun than others and features colorful foliage, including pink, white, and dark green veins spreading around.
2. Aaron Fancy Leaf Caladium
If you are looking for a perfect plant for a beginner, you mustn’t look beyond Aaron ‘Fancy-Leaved’ Caladium. It is easy to grow and maintain and perfect for green thumb gardeners.
Its bulbs produce medium to large heart-shaped creamy white leaves alongside giant stems and flowers from summer to fall.
Aaron caladium also features a white center with dark green tips and can reach up to 24 inches tall and wide. It is a caladium variety that will thrive in full sun to partial shade conditions but can tolerate direct light. It does well in almost every soil if it is moist and warm throughout.
3. Caladium lindenii
Thanks to its stunning features, caladium lindenii is a perfect caladium to add to any indoor space. It is one of the most popular caladium varieties with long and leathery arrow-shaped leaves with dark green color.
This dark green color starkly contrasts its creamy yellow stripes, forming a zebra-like design. Meanwhile, the Caladium lindenii can reach 2 to 3 feet tall and does well in bright, indirect sunlight and rich, acidic, well-draining soil.
4. Heart Of Jesus (Caladium bicolor)
Heart of Jesus Caladium is the primary species of beautiful tropical plants featuring slender, papery, bi-colored leaves. It has pointed, fancy heart-shaped leaves with incredible leaves in several colors and patterns.
This variety will do best in porous potting and well-draining soil and will require full to partial shade and regular watering in the summer to keep the soil moist.
Also scientifically called Caladium hortulanum, the heart of Jesus caladium hates overwatering, as it will cause bulbs to rot in soggy soil. Like most other caladium varieties, this plant can die back to the ground during the winter.
If you are planting indoors, you can prune the foliage and plant the bulbs in dry soil over winter, ready for replanting the following spring.
5. Spring Fling
If you want to add a unique color and beauty to your indoor collections, Spring Fling is the perfect plant for you.
You’ll undoubtedly be marveled at what this plant will bring to your indoor space, as it features strawberry-colored leaves and displays its gorgeous appearance everywhere. It resembles cotton candy or a pink summer sky.
6. Caladium Candidum
Caladium candidum is another variety that can add vibrancy and color to your space, whether indoors or outdoors.
Also known as Angel Wings, this variety is a gorgeous tuberous species featuring white, heart-shaped leaves and stunning dark green veins, making it a perfect addition to your indoor environs.
7. Florida Sweetheart Caladium (Caladium bicolor)
Caladium ‘Florida Sweetheart’ is one of the most popular caladium varieties with a strap-shaped appearance. It features rosy red heart leaves, green margins, and dark pink stripes.
It comes with tiny, lance-shaped leaves featuring wavy, ruffled, margins; hence, adding to the plant’s decorative features.
Florida Sweetheart is a small compact variety growing between 6 to 12 inches (15 to 30 cm) tall. It produces green and pink arrow-shaped leaves that can lighten up any dark space or corner of your garden.
It can survive some sun without causing any harm to its stunning pinkish-red bright colors.
8. Caladium ‘Miss Muffet’
Caladium ‘Miss Muffet’ is also called dwarf Caladium due to its dwarf size that can only reach 1 foot tall and spread. It also features ruffled heart-shaped leaves in white and pale lime-green alongside dainty bright pink stripes.
The dark pink stripes usually resemble a wine stain whenever they bleed into the leaf. This variety does best in shade and humus soil.
9. Caladium Iceberg
Caladium iceberg is a strap-leaf caladium featuring incredible green foliage. It also comes with stunning colors ranging from mottled cream to dark green patterns covering the foliage with a darker red coloration around the meeting point of the stem and leaf blade.
The caladium iceberg thrives in full to partial sun, acidic, well-draining, and rich soil.
10. Caladium ‘Rose Glow’
Although Rose Glow is a newer variety, it is becoming more popular than others before it, thanks to its eye-catching pink-white-and-green leaves.
This variety is excellent in shady areas and can do great as a container plant and in landscapes. It is also a good companion plant for shorter types for a fuller look and prefers well-draining, rich soil.
11. Fannie Munson (Fancy-Leaved Caladium)
Fannie Munson is one of the most common fancy-leaf caladiums featuring a stunning flamingo pink middle and a dark green leaves tip.
It is a shade-loving variety that becomes more vibrant with more shade; hence, it would be best to plant in full shade to achieve an optimal height of 30 inches.
Fannie Munson leaves are susceptible to light harm because their translucent leaves result in their burn or drying out, producing dull color and shapeless leaves.
Even though it is very beautiful, this variety is not an annual plant, requiring additional care to maintain in the cold season. It can also survive temperatures of 7 degrees Celsius.
12. Caladium ‘Florida Cardinal’
Florida Cardinal is one of the most popular caladium varieties that can grow up to 1.5 feet tall. It comes with broad, velvety spade-shaped leaves of dusty emerald green splashed with electric pink centers seeping into the veins.
This variety will enjoy partial to full shade and does best in a peat moss-based soil medium.
13. Caladium ‘Red Flash
Caladium ‘Red Flash’ features giant, heart-shaped leaves with various colors, including green, pink, and red. Its oval-shaped olive-green leaves feature deep red veins that look like they are bleeding into the green leaves.
Its gorgeous leaves are beautified with pink speckling, adding to its incredible foliage designs.
Red Flash sometimes develops spathe bloom, but it is often made invisible by the large leaves. This variety is a giant tender perennial growing between 18 to 30 inches (45 to 76 cm) tall.
Even though it does best in partial shade, its incredible foliage will display more fascinating colors in bright, indirect sunlight. It thrives in colorful borders or pots outdoors.
14. Caladium ‘Magneficum’
Caladium Magneficum is a larger version of the Caladium lindenii specie and can grow to a staggering 4 feet tall in the mature stage.
It can also produce about 1.4 feet long smooth lance-shaped foliage with dark green and bright white stripes. This variety will require repotting into a bigger pot every year to inspire more giant leaves.
15. Gingerland Caladium ‘Strap-Leaf Caladium’
As mentioned earlier, Caladium has wide varieties, but Gingerland will be the last on our list of the most popular Caladium varieties. If you want a plant that will only consume a little space in your home or garden, the Gingerland Caladium is your go-to plant.
This variety is a medium-sized caladium featuring creamy white middle, reddish-pink stripes, and green margins to add stunning pops of color to your space.
However, the gingerland variety is considered among the dwarf types due to its slow growth rate, and it can only grow up to 12 to 18 inches tall and wide.
One of the most exciting things about the Gingerland ‘Strap-Leaved Caladium’ is their tolerance of the sun. In other words, it will survive direct light but do not allow it for too long, because it can burn the leaves.
Therefore, always inspect your plant to check for dryness by watering it frequently and keeping it in shady spots when necessary.
Conclusion
Given the numerous varieties in supply, you will often encounter selection problems when picking a caladium for your indoor space. Again, every caladium plant is unique, with colorful leaves and vibrant patterns.
However, you can choose from the popular varieties listed above. The best time to shop and pot your caladium varieties is during the growing season.
Happy Gardening!!!
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