Caladium Makes a Comeback

I've been checking in on my house plants a little less regularly the past week or so.  I was ever so delighted to see the latest new growth on my caladium, however!  Here are some snapshots:

You'll notice in the first photo, my one transplant/propagant/rescue plant has an entirely deep green leaf.  It just looks so odd on this plant!  I wonder if that's just a growing glitch during this regrowth phase, or if it is the result of not getting enough sunlight.  I actually wonder if it is more related to the tubular of that particular stem.  Upon closer inspection, that tubular is shoved right up against the glass and the new leaves are growing in a curved fashion as they round the lip of the glass jar.

Other than that oddity, the caladium plants appear to be doing very well!  They aren't as huge as they were when I bought them, but I have great anticipation for their future growth!

Caladium Pest Problem... Eradicated!

It appears that my strategy for eliminating that unidentified life-sucking pest has succeeded!  Well, for the most part.  You may recall, my last ditch effort was to divide up the main tubular into individual chunks, giving each chunk a thorough cleanse in the sink and fresh new soil and container.  I ended up with 7 separate containers of itty bitty caladium parts.  Of those 7, 3 have begun to flourish and 4 have withered away.  I must not have been as thorough with the cleanse on those 4 because once again, almost over night, the pests returned and began to cover the entire stem and underside of the leaf.  If I had acted quickly, I probably could have repeated the cleaning and repotting strategy and saved those plants.  But I couldn't designate enough time in the middle of the week to execute and so they have perished.

Getting Real About the Caladium Pest Problem

So, after weeks and weeks of no improvement with my caladium pest problem, I decided to take a more aggressive approach.

To quickly recap, thus far I was combatting the aphids/mites/bugs/pests by rinsing the whole plant under the sink and wiping off whatever visible bugs I could find.  Then I'd douse the stems and top of the soil with a part-rubbing alcohol, part-water spray.  The stalks would remain relatively free of bugs for a couple days, but invariably after a week, they'd be coated with creepy crawlers all over again.

So, about a week ago, I put the caladium outside on my stoop (south-facing and mostly unshaded).  I don't know why, but I tend to think that houseplant bugs can't handle the outdoors (when my ivy got infested with what may have been spider mites, I shoved it outdoors for awhile too.  In that particular instance, the ivy died shortly after.).  This did manage to eliminate several of the bugs, to my relief (basically saved me the step of flooding the whole plant under the faucet).

Next, I did a little research and determined that keeping a shade-loving plant in direct sunlight all day was probably not a long-term solution.  I brought the caladium inside and decide to repot it.  When I started removing the soil and rinsing it in the sink, I noticed the "tubers" (like a bulb) were separating or separated.  I decided to use some more of my handy dandy baby food jars as pots and divvy those bad boys up.

Then I prepped 6 or 7 baby food jars.  I started by dropping in maybe a half scoop of river gravel.

The gravel is always dirty or dusty when you get it, so it's a good idea to give the stones a quick rinse in the jars.  Notice in the photo below the pre-rinse jar on the right with cloudy water, and the post-rinse jar on the left with clear water.

Then I prepped some soil.  I don't have a lot in stock, so I used about 5 parts African violet potting soil (which is sphangum peat moss and vermiculite) to 2 parts perlite.  This may have been too much perlite, but I did my best to eyeball the combination of the original potting soil that came with the plant.

Then I thoroughly rinsed off each leaf, stalk and tuber before dropping the little tubers into the jars.  Each tuber had one to three leaves.  Lastly, I packed the jars tightly with my soil concoction.  I'm not sure if packing in the soil tightly was a good idea or not.  I tend to think that a compacted soil is most reminiscent of soil conditions outside, but I guess sometimes houseplants don't always need the same conditions as the outdoors, particularly when things like drainage become a concern.  I guess we will see how these make out!

For now, the plants will sit in isolated areas near sunny windows, until a week or two has passed when I feel confident the bug problem has not returned.

Caladium Pest (Trying to Take) Control

Almost since I brought this plant home it has had a problem with this gnat-like insect spreading over its stems and in some cases the undersides of the leaves.  I have tried googling this problem, but I am having a hard time identifying the pest and therefore effectively eliminating it.  So far my method has involved drenching the plant with my kitchen hose and knocking off as many of the pests as a can.  Then I give the plant a thorough watering and spritz all the leaves and stems with a half-and-half (more or less) spray of rubbing alcohol and water mixture.  It's a home remedy I found online, which I figured I'd try before going out and buying some expensive (and potentially ineffective) pesticide.

I can't tell if this leaf damage is from the insects, or the alcohol sprays I've been applying, or if it's just a little weary from a hot and dry extended weekend when I wasn't home to water it as needed.  It was the only plant of mine to be particularly droopy when I returned home from Michigan this weekend.

With this most recent drenching and spritzing I ended up spraying out a lot of the soil, too.  I applied a topcoat of an African Violet potting mixture (the only fresh stuff I had), to cover up the roots that became exposed with the drenching.  I'm starting to wonder if reusing potting soil has its disadvantages.  I don't recall if I reused potting soil for this one, but I doubt I really shook it out when I transferred this pot from its store pot.