general care guides
As a general rule of thumb, most of my plants get the same mixture of fertilizer water and soil, only slightly tailored for my scindapsus since they are slow growers and do not like to be over fertilized. I use beneficial insects on all my plants, including 'crazee mites' Anystis baccarum as a general predator, Neoseiulus swirskii for spider mite and general mite control, and Neoseiulus californicus for thrips control. I also use Jacks Dead Bug Brew and Neem oil to clean the leaves occasionally.
anthurium seeds
I'll usually ship seeds and itty bitty sprouts in condiment containers or tiny shot glass cups with domes. If in a condiment container you can keep it in there till the leaf hits the lid. If you don’t have a 85%+ cabinet/tent/greenhouse you can get parfait cups from amazon that will allow them to grow big enough to where they will tolerate 70-75% humidity. Once they grow out of that 12oz parfait cup slowly transition them to lower humidity but popping the top off for a couple hours a day, increasing the duration each day until they are in
the new desired humidity.
Seeds and itty bitty sproutlings need low light. I keep most of my sprouts in 50-75FC. The lower the light, the slower but darker the seedling usually becomes. the brighter light, the faster but lighter the plant can become. If you can, get a cheap $20 light meter, it helps take the guess work
out of things.
Each seed, sprout, and plant is different. I select high quality dark genetics but each individuals care can affect how the plant grows and matures.
Keep seeds and sprouts moist, but not sopping wet, and never let them dry out. I don't think fertilizer is necessary until they have their first leaf. But I would recommend ph balancing to around 5.5 and dechlorinating
the water source.
I like to keep my babies and seeds in 40% perlite and 60% tree fern fiber. I use Joshs Frogs brand. Small perlite is best for those little roots. Once they are on their 4th or 5th leaf I put them in juvenile mix with pine chips to aerate the soil. This also helps cut cost a bit. I use the brand Mulctun on Amazon which has really nice fine bark and perlite mix that works great for small juvi plants. I eyeball my soil but I like things on the slightly more tree fern fiber heavy side.
As for pots, I usually use frosted clear in a variety of sizes, once again from amazon. I use a pretty lightweight and fluffy soil that I do not compact down so the roots have nice humid air in the pots.
scindapsus
I keep a majority of my scindapsus in half moss, and half chunky aroid mix in my cabinet at around 85% humidity for fast rooting and growth. Most acclimate easily to ambient however. I have most of my collection on moss poles that I keep consistently moist and never dry out. I usually water every other day or every 3 days with a diluted mix of super thrive foliage pro, calmag, and PH balanced to 5.5 however I find it is not crucial to do this for scindapsus. I just don't care to change the water solution aside from diluting to half strength from the full strength version I use for my alocasia and anthurium out of convenience. Scindapsus do not require a lot of fertilizer and are slow growers even under the best care. Many scindapsus can be acclimated to ambient over the course of several weeks. Most prefer medium-high light 900-1500 FC (foot candles). I would let them dry out about 60% and water lightly
to keep them moist.
alocasia
I keep most of my teen and adult alocasia in ambient temps and humidity. In the winter this is 45%-55% and summer 60%. Most of my alocasia are grown in semi-hydro of moss and perlite mix. I keep the bottom 2" of the vase with a strong fertilizer mixture of super-thrive foliage pro, cal mag, silica, and ph balanced to 5.5. I do think this is a little overkill but it makes them grow like crazy. I used to only do superthrive and everyone was fine however. So long as you fertilize regularly, keep them moist, and under strong light they should be happy. Most of my alo get 900-1500 FC of light under grow lights for 12 hours a day, the could probably take more light than that as well.
I keep most of my props and babies in 75% humidity and either use moss or fluval stratum substrate. For corms, I switch between fluval and puddle method. I tend to be rather lackadaisy when it comes to my plants, and try not to baby them too much so future owners don't have a fussy plant. To acclimate a plant to ambient, regularly open their bag/cup/container for an hour or so a day increasing the time open every other day. After several weeks they should be good! I think alocasia must choose their owners as I have not had many issues with them in general! Aside from a few get spider mites. But the predatory mites take care of that.
anthurium
I recently started increasing my fertilizer and PH balancing my tap water. We are lucky here in Washington state to have great tap water with low salts and TDS. I use fish dechorionizer to prep the water, then lower the PH down to around 5.5. I noticed some of my more finicky anthurium responded to the lower PH with less root rot and quicker rooting. So I think if you are having problems, the PH will allow more nutrients to be soaked up, an prevent some fungal issues. I also add Great White mycorrhizae to each watering, just a little tap of the bottle. Beneficial bacteria is still a debated topic on whether it works or not, since so much of that is a symbiotic relationship with the specific type of bacteria, the exact plant, the soil etc. But its not hurting and there might be some use for it.
As I mentioned above in the other care guides, all my plants get the exact same watering and ferts aside from the scindapsus, to which I just dilute the water in half since they dont like too much as they are very slow growers. Since increasing my fertilizer, PH balancing, and treating the tap water I have seen a boom of leaf growth, flowering, and overall vitality. They weren't doing poorly on just the small amount of superthrive foliage pro, but they seemed to really respond to the increase in treatment mumbo jumbo.
Many of my adult and teen anthurium are in an ambient household environment. Some of them are in my tent which is around 80% humidity. I use a semi-chunky tree mix of tree fern fiber. coco husk, large perlite, and fine pine bark with moss collars to encourage arial root growth. The anthurium are kept evenly moist and I never let them dry out. That could mean watering every other day for small plants and twice a week for larger plants.
Babies get 40-90 FC and adults get 150-250 FC of light 12 hours a day. I use barrina t5 lights.
