Plants in My Little Garden: Caladium Bicolor

Hiii, friends of the Hive Garden community, it's me again! How are you this time? I hope you're very well!

This time I want to show you one of the plants in my garden which won my heart (it's funny to say so, too, because its leaves are heart-shaped). Well, today I want to tell you a little bit about my Caladium Bicolor, because I feel that it's one of the plants I have experimented with the most when it comes to its care, among other little things. Here we go!

I'll tell you how I got this plant…

Hear this, a relative has a garden, but she is not so much a plant lover, to tell you the truth, and so her garden is very neglected. I was very sad to see her plants, but specifically, there was one that caught my attention.

This is what the poor plant looked like.

As I got closer, I noticed those tiny little heart leaves that were still green, so I decided to ask her if I could take them, to which she said yes.

I took an empty bottle of soda, do not forget to open holes for drainage, and…

And from that day on, my adventure with this beautiful plant began.

I was curious to know its name, because I had no idea, until that moment I only called it “hearts”. It's a cute name.

Doing a search using Google Lens, I discovered that this plant belongs to the genus Caladium, where different varieties of this plant are found. This is a variety of Caladium Bicolor, and according to it, it's the most common variety.

There are different varieties of caladiums, but they all share the same thing: they are heart-shaped, and they are beautiful. I invite you to search the internet for the different varieties and admire the photos. My favorites are the White Queen Caladium, they look like something out of a fantasy book.

Well, let's go on.

Now I will show you how I was experimenting with the care of this plant.

I started to get into the habit of taking a picture of it regularly, to evaluate its progress, so I will attach them here, along with the care I was giving it.

Six days after planting. It received sun, but only in the morning, even so, the sun where I live is quite strong, even at 11 o'clock in the morning, you already feel it burns. I watered it twice a day, because when I did a search on the internet about its care, it said that the plant must have a constantly moist soil. Look, it already has a bud about to open.

Nine days after planting. The bud has already opened, and this beautiful leaf with white polka dots, so characteristic, has unfolded. I kept giving the same care, and you can see how bad the leaves look as the sun hits them, I also kept watering twice a day.

Eleven days after planting. The leaves that were yellow before, ended up wilting. However, this leaf is still standing and looking green. There are also more small leaves coming up. I realized that maybe the sun was too strong, so I moved them to a spot where only the milder morning sun would hit them directly, but I kept watering twice a day.

After that, I kept giving the same care of little direct sun and watering twice a day, but the leaves kept dying hopelessly. Then, I realized that excessive water rots the roots, which are tubers, and direct sun burns the leaves, which are somewhat delicate.

Seventeen days after planting. Now I put them in a shady place, they only get indirect sunlight and nothing else. I started watering them only once a day. Look at that, more green leaves and white polka dots started to appear. Guess what's next…

Eighteen and twenty days respectively. Look how fast she started to grow as soon as I took care of her as she needed: a trickle of water a day, enough to wet all the soil, and shade with indirect sunlight.

More pictures, I stopped taking them regularly, as I was already satisfied with her progress and didn't need to see every slightest change, hehe. I think in a while I will need to change pots for this little one, I don't know how much it grows yet.

What do you think? I learned something from this: gardening is not only a science, but also an art. Sometimes it's not about following specific or exact steps, but about experimenting a bit. There is also one very important thing: we have to learn to listen to our plants and know what they require. I think that giving them excessive care is just as harmful as not doing it at all, because it is not the first time that by overdoing it, a plant dies.

So the moral of the day is to take care of the plants without following a strict routine, but rather attending to its needs, I as a beginner did not know this.

Anyway, do you have any caladium varieties? I would like to see them if you do! I like them very much.

This plant became one of my favorites, especially for their “sober” care and how beautiful they are for decorating.

Without anything else to add, take care, drink water, and don't forget to smile, I love you, see you in the next post, bye!

Credits

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• English translation DeepL (sorry for any mistakes, I don't know much English)

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• Dividers, and banners made in Canva. The dividers photos were taken by me.

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• Photos used in the post were taken by me, using a Samsung Galaxy J6