Question I live in south central Kentucky, near Bowling Green. I have a potted plant that was given to us after a funeral, so it came from a local florist. We have seen plants like it before, but we don't know what it's called and so are unable to find info about how to best care for it. It is a cluster of long, oblong leaves with a colored vein running through the center of most of the leaves. The vein is yellow, pink, orange, or even bright red. The leaves in the very middle are all green, even the vein, and the colors get brighter as they go to the outer part of the plant. The outer leaves also have the color on the outside edges, and some are almost all colored. There are no real stems, the leaves almost grow out of the soil themselves. It's in a 6" plastic pot and is about 1' tall. Do you know what it is? Or maybe just what class of plant it falls into? We're just trying not to kill it.
Answersounds like it could be in the dracena, caladium, or croton family. there are millions of plants out there, so w/out seeing it i can't be sure. send a digital photo(jpeg format) to
[email protected]
and i can give you more of a positve answer.
the care would still be similar for most tropical plants.
most are grown under shade cloths in FL because they do not like direct sunlite-the foliage burns(they will tolerate morning sun-inside they do best there). whenever the nitetime temps go below 45 you should bring them inside(even if only for the nite). if the day temps are above 50 you can leave them outside during the day.
water by weight. put a saucer under the pot. water and let the plant sit in the excess water for 5-10 minutes. after that time pour off any excess water in the saucer. pick up the pot. it should feel heavy. don't water again until it feels considerably lighter in weight. outdoors check the plant everyday. indoors check it every 5-10 days. watering frequency depends on many factors(sun exposure, wind, day temps, etc.).
good luck. please rate my answer on the allexperts.com site.
