Question about Caladium

Jane McGary janemcgary@earthlink.net
Sun, 08 Sep 2013 12:52:09 PDT
The PBS website has received an inquiry from an indoor gardener in 
Qatar who needs help with her Caladium collection. Here is an 
excerpted copy of her e-mail. Please reply to this forum and I'll 
forward the information to her.
Jane McGary
Membership COordinator, PBS

Raahat in Qater writes:
I live in the Middle East in Qatar and in summer for about 5 months 
the temperature gets to 45 degree in the daytime so these plants stay 
indoorsI purchased in April - spring - few Caladiums and planted them 
in pots indoors...they were doing perfectly fine and all of them had 
vey large leaves..however we left mid June to Australia and I had. My 
husband caring for the indoor plants.When we got back at the end of 
August I found that the pots were sitting in the heat upstairs..I dug 
up the bulbs with the scraps of withered leaves attached in the pots 
and repotted them..but two weeks ago and nothing has happened. I 
placed them near the window...my question is do I need to \'dry out\' 
or do something to the bulbs before re potting them? Do I need to 
cover the pots with cling wrap ...do they need to have drying soil? 
How long before I can see any growth?  Also the friend whom I have 
given the shoots..is she able to split the plant somehow and give me 
a couple of the stems or will that wreck her plant? Se has gone from 
the two baby leaves i gave her to 5-7 large and small leaves. My next 
question is to do with Elephant Ears with gorgeous stripes I bought 
from a. Nursery 4 days ago. He advised me to water them well when I 
got home as he had to repot into a smaller pot sell the plant to me 
plus the plant sat in the back of the car (aircon) but for 2 hours 
inthe heat. When I got home the plant was fine but I did water it 
well but since then the dark green waxy leaves have become soft 
droopy and purple. Yesterday - day 3- I repotted them into a new 
larger ceramic pot and watered it t tiny tiny amount jsuT to settle 
it into it new place...however I find that another two leaves have 
become soft and crinkly at the edges...will it keep becoming more 
sick or will it recover in a couple days now that I'm not going to 
water ot anymore and it settles into tis new home? Should I cut of 
the soft damaged leaves so the plant can focus on the healthy leaves 
and grow more? If I shd cut of the leaves that have become purple and 
soft should I cut them at the base or the top? Please do help. Many thanks -- 




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