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Outstanding Partners for Caldiums......

gardenlady48
14 years ago

Hi~

Can someone please suggest some really knockout companion plants for caladiums in containers???

Looking for BOLD, and striking ideas...

Thanks in advance.,

Pam

Comments (12)

  • mango_kush
    14 years ago

    how about a canna? like canna Stuttgart

    what type of Caladiums? my favorite are Thai Beauty
    {{gwi:1307359}}

  • tropicalzone7
    14 years ago

    I really like the black stemmed elephant ear as a companion plant. Heres how mine looked with calidiums last summer......

  • costaricafinca
    14 years ago

    Consider one of the 'black' Alocasias. Or Colocasia esculenta another very dark leaved plant.
    Then add Ipomea batatas 'blackie'(sweet potato vine) and possibly the 'Margarita' variety as well. They all look great together...

  • tropicalzone7
    14 years ago

    ^^ Those are great plants for sure.

    I forgot to mention the botanical name for the elephant ear in my pic. Its Colocasia esculenta 'Fontanesii' and also blooms very well (I got 10 blooms from it, I never had so many blooms from an elephant ear before). And it reproduces often and the babies are really easy to pot up as new plants. Unfortunately most of the babies from this large one had aphids on it and died, but I do have 2 left 1 of which is very healthy. And you can store both caldiums and elephant ears really easily for the winter. I made mine brown from a frost, then I cut it down and dragged it in where it got no water. It still grew a little, but nothing much. Now its out for the summer and growing really well.

    There are lots of other nice plants that go well for calidums and a good rule of the thumb is... if the leaves of the plant is purple, or the plant has a dark colored appearance and the plant doesnt get too big, its probably a great companion plant for caldiums.

    Good luck!

  • gardenlady48
    Original Author
    14 years ago

    Mango Kush...WOW..I wish I knew where to purchase a canna like that!! But I thought cannas like sun and caladium not??

    Tropicalzone...love your black stemmed elephant ears too!

    Thank you all for the great suggestions! I hope I can come up with something that will catch the 'eye'. :-)

  • costaricafinca
    14 years ago

    It is 100F here today, and my caladiums are doing great! We are presently in the dry season and have had no rain for months and these get very little additional water. And some of them are huge!
    Last year I added some 'Miss Moffat' and 'Gingerland' and both have recently 'sprouted' and look like they are handling the temperatures as well.
    Many of the basic varieties grow wild in the full sun.

  • mango_kush
    14 years ago

    i find for the most part bulbs and tubers like that generally will grow together.

    cannas stutgarts white variegation will burn in direct florida sun, caladiums are lower growing and would get more shade in the same spot than cannas.

  • tropicalzone7
    14 years ago

    I always thought that caldiums needed lots of shade to thrive, but mine saw some pretty warm days in full sun and never even drooped. If you really want to get them mad then give them some cool weather and they will really start to decline. I didnt know they can handle triple digits in the sun, but they must be extremely happy in the tropics.
    Thanks for the compliment on the elephant ear. Its my favoriate (out of the ones I currently have).

    Good luck!

  • andres_zone3
    14 years ago

    This is the first year I will be trialing caladiums. Our summers are cool- we usually have have 65-80F during the day and 40s and 50s at night. However we do get a few hot spells of upper 80s and occasionally 90 in the summer. Cannas seem to do fine up here. Am I setting myself up for dissapointment with caladiums??? Are my summers just too cool?

  • gardenlady48
    Original Author
    14 years ago

    Andres,
    Check this link out for general info on caladiums. :-)

    http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/825749/how_to_grow_caladiums.html?cat=32

  • tropicalzone7
    14 years ago

    I would give them a try because who knows, they might to really well. But I think there is a city in florida where they grow all over and it gets very humid and hot in the summer. Still it doesnt mean that it will do badly because my caldiums did survive the coldest june on record in my area with most days being cloudy and in the 60s and not ONE day made it to average last june. Average high is 85-86F and the warmest day was only 83F with only 1 other day in the 80s. They didnt grow during that time period, but they didnt decline either. They just laid in the rain waiting for summer to come. Maybe if it was at least cool but sunny they would have done something, but the sun really just didnt come out at all.

    Good luck!

  • andres_zone3
    14 years ago

    Thanks for the reply. I am going to try them since I already bought the bulbs and plant them with a dark-leaved canna, probably "Australia". I sure hope they do well.