Caladium, Heart to Heart Raspberry Moon

Description

‘Raspberry Moon’ is a fancy-leaf variety with a light green to yellow background and it features blotches of dark green and raspberry pink to red which can cover most of the leaf. It performs best in part shade to shade. Caladiums are also generally considered to be houseplants where they prefer bright light or a sunny window..

Uses Notes

Great in landscapes and containers and will grow well in shade to partial shade locations. They can also be grown indoors as a houseplant where they prefer bright light or a sunny window.

Maintenance

Indoors:

Caladiums can be a very nice windowsill or sunroom plant and for much of the United States and certainly in Canada this might be the best use for Caladiums. Since they are tropical they need to have warmth and humidity, try to always keep the temperatures above 65 F for best growth and leaf size, and a pebble tray or frequent misting can help to keep humidity up around your plants. If you live in a northern climate, be careful not to plant too early in spring as temperatures below 50F will chill and stunt plants, normal indoor temperatures should be fine and winter heaters usually dry things out a bit too much. So this can be a good guide for when to grow these Caladiums, when you turn the heater off for the summer.

Plant tubers pointed end facing upwards, so the tuber is about 2€šÃ„ù below the soil level, the roots form on the top of the tuber , so you need to plant them deep enough that roots have room to grow, but not too deep because it delays new leaves and weakens the plant. If your plants are already growing in pots when you purchase them, plant them about ¬Î©€šÃ„ù deeper when you transplant them to make sure the tubers have room to keep growing.

Caladiums do not need a lot of fertilizer, about ¼ of what most folks feed their flowering annuals, and too much fertilizer can burn the leaves especially the white portions of the leaf. So just fertilize with ¼ the strength what you normally do for your flowers and apply weekly or every other week.

Keep plants in a sunny to partly sunny location and avoid burning hot southern exposures especially at higher altitudes.

Keep soil in your pots moist at all times, wilting will cause leaves to yellow and drop, so just check to make they do not dry out!

Outdoors:

Since Caladiums prefer heat and humidity and do not tolerate cold, soggy soils, for most gardeners who live in the north will have best results in containers, as the soil in pots or planters warms up faster and has better drainage so plants will not become soggy. Remember for best growth always keep the temperatures above 65 F.

A ¬º – ¬Î© strength fertilizing every week or every other week is fine throughout the season, too strong a fertilizer can burn leaves, and since the leaves last all season you want to keep them looking fresh. Caladiums like to be moist at all times so avoid allowing them to dry out as it also causes leaves to yellow and drop.

Where the Caladiums will do best depends a lot on your location within the US, since sunlight intensity varies depending on where you live here€šÃ„ôs a quick reference to help guide to help you succeed.

Region	When to Plant	Sun or Shade	Containers or in the garden
NW & NE United States & Canada	Early summer	Full sun – light shade.	Caladiums do best in containers in this part of the country and usually need to be in a protected warm location for best results. Like a sunroom or warm patio setting. If growing outdoors select the warmest protected locations in the garden.
SW United States	Spring	shade to light shade only	Containers may be easiest but a shady, cool garden spot can also be lovely. Watch your watering to keep the plants from drying out.
Midwest	Late Spring	Light shade	Containers are likely best, but a late spring planting into a protected shade flower bed will also be fine.
SE United States	Spring	Shade to sun	Both containers and garden plantings work fine, in the deep south Caladiums may even come back the following year if kept dry over the winter.

Popular Uses

Border Plant, Container, Landscape, Mass Planting

Size: 5″
Store SKU: 78721