How to grow caladiums with success and add lush, tropical color to your Texas landscape

You know what makes gardening such a wonderful hobby? About the time you think that something will never change, you open your eyes and you realize that it’s been changing and that you never noticed it.

Caladiums. They’re a great example. I grew up in College Station with caladiums all around me. They were a staple in shady gardens. When we drove to Houston on shopping excursions there were big beds of caladiums decorating homes and commercial landscapes alike. They were already mainstream sources of color all across the southern U.S.

You haven’t seen as much out of caladiums the past couple of decades, but they’re still out there and they’re still wonderful. In fact, thanks to the work of some great plant breeders there are exciting new varieties coming into the market. Caladiums have never gone away, and I’d be willing to predict that we all will be using them more commonly in the near future. Gardening runs in cycles like that.

A few facts on the plant …

▪ Caladiums are native to tropical central and northern South America where they’re found growing along shaded stream banks.

▪ The highly respected Missouri Botanical Gardens lists them as belonging to species Caladium bicolor, stating that caladiums we grow are almost exclusively hybrid selections.

▪ They are grown from bulb-like tubers that require warm soils to thrive. Veteran North Texas gardeners won’t plant them until mid-May or even June. Curiously, they get the same number of colorful weeks before the plants begin to go dormant.

▪ Dr. Henry Nehrling of Orlando, Florida, had more than 2,000 named varieties in his collection in 1910. (Reported in Circular 128 of the Florida Agricultural Extension Service in February, 1955).

▪ Today, a whopping 98% of all caladium tubers produced in the world come from Lake Placid, Florida, a tiny town of only 2,500 people. Fourteen farms produce millions of tubers annually on less than 2 square miles of land.

▪ The largest wholesale distributor of caladium tubers in the world is right here in the Metroplex. They’re behind the scenes, but who would have expected it!

▪ Hurricanes in the past 25 years have almost put the growers out of business, but they’ve kept coming back. Lake Placid, after all, has been named the “Caladium Capital of the World.”

Steps to success with caladiums …

▪ Choose your favorite leaf shapes and colors.

▪ Buy from a reputable source. Beware of bargain tubers. Buy for quality, not just for low prices.

▪ Most varieties do best with morning sun — until 9 or 10 a.m. and then shade from that point on. Some varieties are tolerant of much more sunlight than that. Your local independent retail garden center specialist will be able to advise you. To some degree, the smaller, strap-leafed varieties are more tolerant of sun than fancy-leafed types.

▪ Plant caladiums into well-prepared garden beds to which you have added several inches of organic matter (peat moss, compost, well-rotted manure and finely ground pine bark mulch).

▪ Plant them 1 to 1-1/2 inches deep, and space them fairly closely together for the best show. I like to use small to medium-sized tubers for massed plantings in beds and larger tubers for containers where they will be viewed closer in as more of the focal point of the landscape.

▪ I’ve even used strap-leafed types in very large hanging baskets for a really unusual look. If you have a limb strong enough to support it I recommend, but stick with the strap-leafed types. They’re more graceful in that use.

▪ Like any plant your caladiums will benefit from regular feedings, but beware not to apply excessive nitrogen. It tends to cause new growth to shade to green instead of the intense colors.

▪ Above all, don’t let your plants wilt. They’re native to moist woodlands, and that’s what they need in their landscape surroundings. As soon as you let them wilt one or two times you’ll see them start jettisoning their oldest leaves to reduce the demand on their root systems.

▪ Should green “Jack-in-the-pulpit” flowers start to develop, keep them pinched out immediately. Caladium flowers stop production of additional leaves and start to send the tubers into dormancy.

▪ Can you leave caladiums in the ground for another year? Not this far north. Our soils get far too cold for this tropical plant. If you want to try to save and store the tubers you’ll need to dig them when most of their leaves have started to fall to the ground (usually late October). Lay them out on newspapers in the garage to dry for a few days. Sprinkle them with sulfur to prevent disease over the winter, then place them in a box filled with dry sawdust or perlite. Do not allow them to touch one another. Store them warm (60F) over the winter before you replant them in mid- to late spring. All of that said, most gardeners find it easier and more rewarding simply to buy fresh tubers each year.

You can hear Neil Sperry on KLIF 570AM on Saturday afternoons 1-3 p.m. and on WBAP 820AM Sunday mornings 8-10 a.m. Join him at www.neilsperry.com and follow him on Facebook.

This story was originally published May 27, 2022 at 5:30 AM.