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Looking for an Anthurium Red Crystallinum care guide to keep your plant looking its best? This is the most complete and ultimate guide!
The Anthurium Red Crystallinum is a plant that has experienced some recent attention. This plant is adored for it’s large beautiful velvety leaves that have a deep red coloration. Anthuriums can be intimidating to care for, as they tend to be more finicky than other aroids, but not to worry. This guide will provide you with all the information you need to easily care for a thriving Red Crystallinum.
Anthurium Red Crystallinum – Quick Care Guide
Light: Moderate to bright indirect sunlight (1500-2500 LUX), fluorescent or LED grow light.
Soil: Well-draining chunky soil mix or Sphagnum moss
Watering: Let soil dry out before watering again. Water fully when top 1 inches of soil is dry. If using sphagnum moss, keep it lightly moist.
Humidity: 65% or more
Temperature: Warm. 60º-80ºF or 15.5º-27ºC. Not tolerant of frost.
Fertilizing: Diluted liquid fertilizer weekly/biweekly, Osmocote, bone meal, or fertilizer of choice
Anthurium Red Crystallinum
The Anthurium Red Crystallinum is a beautiful plant with an interesting story. This plant is not a true species, but a hybrid of a variety of anthuriums.
Red Crystallinums originate from the original WonderBoy anthurium hybrid that was developed by Tim Anderson almost 20 years ago.
Tim Anderson was a prominent horticulturist that focused on developing programs at the Palm Hammock Orchid Estate in South Florida to create anthurium hybrids.
One of Tim’s hybrid programs resulted in an Anthurium hybrid that grew large velvety emerald leaves with deep reddish tone, along with crimson red petioles.
This Anthurium was the Wonder Boy. The crystallinum mother plant was pollinated in an open greenhouse, so the true species of the other plant remains unknown.
It was from the WonderBoy that the Red Crystallinum was developed, and was likely hybridized from a magnificum or dressleri.
Light Requirements
This plant has less light intensity requirements to thrive than other aroids.
Despite having less light intensity requirements, this plant will do poorly if placed in an area where light is suboptimal.
For a thriving crystallinum, you will want to have this plant in an area with 1500- 2500 LUX.
To guarantee appropriate light levels, we personally use and recommend using a LUX light meter to measure the light intensity where the plant is placed.
The Red Crystallinum prefers bright, but indirect light.
A south or east facing window should provide optimal light. The crystallinum may tolerate short periods of direct sunlight, but should be limited to early morning sunlight. Avoid direct sunlight greater than 1-2 hours or you risk scorching your plants foliage.
You can also use a grow light if you’re having trouble finding an area with sufficient light.
Soil Requirements
This plant requires constant moisture, so choosing the appropriate pot and medium is important.
Anthuriums grow well in a medium that is well-aerated and maintains light moisture. With that said, the Red Crystallinum does not do well when the medium gets persistently dry.
The medium the plant is in will highly determine the success of your anthurium.
The medium we use for our anthuriums is our aroid soil mix or sphagnum moss mixed with some chunky perlite. If using sphagnum moss as your medium, always use a quality moss. We like to use Besgrow Spagmoss.
What you medium and pot you should use is highly dependent on your preference, and most importantly, your plants environment.
Sphagnum moss can dry too quickly in hot, dry environments, and can be over saturated in wet, high humidity environments.
Well-draining aroid soil mix tends to be middle of the road and works well all around.
Another popular technique we’ve seen success with combines the two mediums. The Anthurium is potted in aroid mix, and sphagnum moss is placed on top of the soil. As the plant grows, additional sphagnum moss is placed on top as the plant grows.
In the end, we’ve found sphagnum moss to be optimal if the plant is kept indoors where you can fully control the moisture and temperature, and aroid soil if the plant is kept outdoors.
Pot Requirements
An important aspect to think about is the container you pot the Red Crystallinum in.
Terra cotta pots provide great breathability, but the soil will dry out faster and will require more watering than a plastic pot.
Plastic pots will retain more moisture, and requires less watering, but may increase the risk of root rot if there is insufficient drainage or in an environment with high moisture and humidity.
Watering Requirements
Now that we’ve discussed the mediums you can use to plant your crystallinum in, and how each one retains moisture, we can now discuss watering.
Watering is a crucial aspect in growing a thriving Red Crystallinum.
As mentioned, the crystallinum likes to remain moist, but not waterlogged and oversaturated.
It is important to frequently monitor the moisture level of your medium regardless which medium you choose to plant anthurium in.
Most aroids prefer to dry out before their next watering, but Anthuriums do not!
Water when the top 1″ of soil is dry if your plant is in a chunky aroid soil mix.
If your plant is in sphagnum moss, you’ll want the sphagnum moss to be lightly moist at all times. Do not allow the sphagnum to completely dry out.
The best way to gauge the moisture is by sticking your finger in the medium to manually feel the moisture level.
Humidity Requirements
The Red Crystallinum like all aroids require humidity. Originating from the rainforest, the crystallinum thrives in high humidity, and requires higher humidity than most aroids.
The red crystallinum will thrive in 65% humidity or greater.
It is important to know the humidity of the plant’s surrounding environment.
If your plant is outdoors and you live in an area with naturally high humidity you may not need to worry about monitoring the humidity.
If the plant is indoors or you live in a non-tropical region, you will want to closely monitor the humidity.
We personally use and recommend a hygrometer to monitor the humidity.
If your humidity is low, there are different techniques you can use to help raise the humidity.
One method is grouping plants closely together to create a microclimate with increased humidity levels surrounding the plants.
Another method is placing the plant on top of a pebble tray with water. We’ve seen some success with this humidity tray as it also serves as a drip tray when watering your plants.
If these methods don’t raise your humidity enough, you may consider using an actual humidifier. We like this humidifier as it has a sensor that maintains the humidity level you set.
Temperature Requirements
This plant will thrive in temperatures of 60ºF to 80ºF or 16ºC – 27ºC. Even though this plant originates in the rainforest, anthuriums prefer cooler temperatures than other aroids.
Despite thriving in cooler temperatures, this plant will not tolerate frost. This plant also prefers stable temperatures, and does not like large fluctuations in temperature.
If you keep your plants outdoors, it may tolerate lower dips in temperature for a short period of time, however if the plant will be in temperatures lower than 55ºF for more than a few days or there may be chance of frost, its recommended to bring your plant indoors.
If you keep your plant indoors, avoid direct drafts from the air conditioner, heater or furnace.
Fertilizing Requirements
Fertilizing is the final component to having a thriving plant.
Anthuriums require less fertilizer than most aroids so be aware of overfertilizing.
For low maintenance fertilizing, we recommend Osmocote with worm castings mixed into the soil. Osmocote can last up to 6 months and is easy to add to soil when its time to re-fertilize.
First, we personally like to fertilize “weakly weekly”. We recommend fertilizing with fish emulsion diluted to quarter strength weekly or biweekly.
Secondly, you will want to fertilize more frequently during periods of growth (spring and summer), and less during more dormant periods (fall and winter).
Lastly, avoid overfertilizing your crystallinum as it will lead to “burning” your plants foliage.
Anthurium Red Crystallinum Care Conclusion
We covered all the main components to consider when growing this anthurium. If we can stress a single point for caring for the Red Crystallinum, it’s to prioritize keeping your grow medium consistently moist and breathable.
If you want to make any tweaks to your plant’s care regimen, do it slowly, changing one thing at a time to see how your plant reacts.
Congrats! You are now ready to grow a thriving Anthurium Red Crystallinum.
Let’s keep growing!