8 tips for growing and maintaining caladiums

More and more nurseries sell unusual caladiums. Use them to set a tropical mood in your garden.

Most caladiums have large heart-shaped leaves with contrasting veins or edges. Pink, white, green and red combine differently in each variety.

• More adaptable caladiums with elongated, lance-shaped leaves tolerate more sun as well as slightly cooler temperatures. Most caladiums with 'Florida' in their name fall into this group.
• Smaller species caladiums, such as Caladium humboldtii, grow only 13 centimetres tall, so they're great for planters.
• Gigantic elephant ears (Colocasia and Alocasia species) are not the same species as caladiums, but they are grown the same way. Many have beautifully variegated green leaves.
• 'Candidum', probably the most popular caladium, has large snow-white leaves laced with green veins and it does a wonderful job of cooling down sultry shade.
• The dwarf variety 'Little Miss Muffet' has lime green leaves speckled with red, and it grows beautifully in containers.

Caladium tubers can be confusing, but they will always grow if you bypass the mystery by planting them on their sides. Of course, the preferred planting position is top side up.

Although caladiums crave shade, too little light may make them leggy and weak-stemmed.

• This seldom happens outdoors, but watch indoor caladiums for signs of light starvation.

Caladiums need plenty of fertilizer to grow big, lush leaves.

• Instead of applying fertilizer all at once, give them regular rations of a balanced or high-nitrogen fertilizer all through the summer months.

The painterly patterns and clean lines of caladium leaves make them ideal for simple flower arrangements, such as a single leaf paired with a rosebud in a glass vase.

Caladiums do well when they get plenty of water.

• If you have a garden pool, pot the tubers in porous terracotta pots.
• Once the plants have developed one or two leaves, place the pots on a ledge or cement blocks at the pool's edge, with the rims just above water level. They'll respond with lush growth.

Expect no flowers from caladiums unless you live in a hot, humid climate.

• If an odd-looking, leafless, elongated stem does appear, clip it off so that the plant will concentrate its energy on growing leaves rather than flowers, which are not at all showy.

If you grow your caladiums in pots, you can store them that way, too.

• Gradually withhold water from the plants in early fall; they will slowly die back and become dormant.
• Clip off all top growth and store the almost-dry pots in an indoor closet. In late spring, repot the corms in clean containers filled with fresh potting soil.

• Caladiums flourish in heat and can't abide temperatures below 18°C.
• Even dormant tubers will rot if the temperature drops much below 16°C, so give caladiums warmer storage temperatures than dahlias or gladiolus.