Calathea Collection & Care || 10+ Calathea Varieties || 2020 || Fussy... or Misunderstood?

hello this is sarah with soiled plant and today i'd like to go over my calathea collection ever since i started my houseplant collection calathea have always been some of my favorites the foliage is beautiful i tend to be on the overwatering side of things so i figured these would be a good plant to start with and they have a reputation for being very fussy and there is good reason for that and i'll show you every kalathi i have even the bad ones i'll talk about the ones that are no longer with us and kind of the struggles that i've had to overcome in order to have a sustainable calathea collection so first i'll start off with where i keep my calatheas in my house so just to the left of me are two windows that are east facing now even though they're each facing there is a building pretty close by and a big tree so it's very very scattered light it almost gives off enough light to be considered maybe a north-facing window um the the table behind me is fairly long it's about six feet long so the calathea i have on this far end are about six to eight feet from that window that is not nearly enough light to have calathea thrive so they're generally lower to medium light plants at least that's how they're sold in stores i've found that they generally like medium indirect light the best if you notice any of your calathea losing coloring or the backs of the leaves that normally have a very dark sort of maroon color to them and they start fading you'll know that they are getting too much light so there are certain plants out there that if they start losing their color like a croton if they're losing their color that means that they're getting not enough light calatheas are the opposite because calatheas generally in the wild are going to be kind of ground cover so it's under that first canopy and it's under the second canopy and they don't climb they don't climb they don't vine so they are generally going to stay close to the ground under the base of trees and things like that so that means if you know your your foliage is losing some of that lovely dark maroon color on the bottom give it a little less light i also want to point out that when i say my calathea collection i'm also including stromanthi and miranta i have more calathea than i do the other ones and i only have one miranda but i'm going to include all of them that are kind of under the miranti family so let's start with the plants i have in front these ones are in front and not on my table because they were either rehabilitating or i have them in my greenhouse so let's start with the calathea white fusion right here in front this one i keep in my greenhouse that i have inside these ones love humidity more than any other calathea i've ever owned they get brown tips very easily i have quite a few that have brown tips right now including some of these lower leaves that i'm losing at the moment it's still growing and it's got a bunch of shoots so i'm not necessarily upset that some of the leaves are browning that's just kind of the nature of owning calatheas so a calathea white fusion is actually the first calathea i ever bought this is not that original calathea so that galatia i didn't have enough humidity in my house i wasn't watering it the proper amount and it quickly dwindled away to little sticks and promptly died now with calathea if they die back and they still have the stump and the little little base stems there they can rehabilitate themselves and a lot of time with calathea if they grow in the environment that you give them when they're from little stumps generally that means that they're going to be a little more resilient a little more tolerant to any of the conditions you're giving it when my calathea white fusion went back down into stumps and i was determined to rehabilitate it it did start growing new leaves now the reason that wasn't successful is because one of my cats decided to chew them back down into stumps the calathea white fusion has very very very delicate very thin leaves so they're very susceptible to pests and also my cat as it turns out so original plant sticks went back down into stumps cat chewed off the leaves didn't deter me i moved the position away from where my cat could reach it and it started to grow back again lo and behold it got spider mites pretty much instantly went back down to stumps again so that means for a third time that white fusion had to rehabilitate itself and every single time it was getting smaller and smaller as you would expect and eventually the leaves just weren't happy you could tell that they were struggling the plant was struggling and the leaves just naturally decayed on their own again even when i was giving it good conditions so it got to the point where i kind of gave up on it threw it out decided to start from scratch i i picked up this one about a month and a half ago it's already got a couple of little brown spots but since i've gotten the greenhouse it tends to be doing much better the calathea white fusion has a reputation of being one of the fussiest calatheas and i would pretty much agree with that there are a couple calathea that i would categorize as too fussy to the point where i wouldn't even have them anymore and this one i decided to try again so i'm going to take this one and put it back in the greenhouse so that it is still in its optimal conditions so now that we're done with the white fusion i will introduce you to the calathea rosiopicta dottie there are many calathea rosio picta varieties they generally have the same round leaf shape the kind of ripples along the inside they can be smooth but generally they're the rounder leaves with kind of a circular pattern on the inside i've had a few in the past and the dottie is the only one i still have so i at one point had a rosio picked a cora and i've also had the medallion which is a common one that you see in plant stores a lot i lost the cora to spider mites it i didn't notice it fast enough and it had already deteriorated a majority of the plant and it never quite recovered the standard calathea rosio picked a medallion i would classify in the upper tier of fussy calathea i was watering the medallion the same as every other calathea i own it didn't have pests or anything like that but they deteriorate so quickly for me that i've decided that the standard medallion is just i don't have the right conditions for it and i've heard of people on social media who say medallions are so easy and mine's gigantic and i don't even have a humidifier and it's just like that that's not me apparently so whatever is wrong with how i take care of house plants the medallion and i do not get along so i've given up on the medallion but i do really really like the dottie so this one is a dotty i ordered online during the winter and it was about this big when i bought it and pretty quickly all of the leaves died back now that was a mistake on my part i was too eager to get it but i did keep the plant and you see all these brand new leaves they've all sprouted up in the past couple of weeks to a month so i think that this one's going to survive and it's going to be okay now i did go out and get another full one because i think what was wrong with this one was the humidity wasn't high enough and it might have had a pest because i tend to get spider mites frequently and i haven't managed to eradicate them yet but i treat my plants pretty regularly to the point where if they're there i'm keeping them at bay enough so that they're not killing the plants you know what i'm saying and with calathea a lot of times when you bring them home you're going to lose a few leaves while it acclimates to your home don't panic don't think that the plant is dying or it's not happy if you see any drying on new leaves or leaves that are not the oldest smallest leaves at the base then you then you have a problem but on this one in particular i've got it in the greenhouse it's extra humid extra nice and warm good light for it and i'm still losing some bottom leaves that that's to be expected of course you can always check it for spider mites things like that um but generally it's doing very very well i will say with this one it's been in rehabilitation because i wasn't sure if what killed it was something i did or if it was spider mites so i've got this kind of in a quarantine spot that i have these next two calatheas in and it's still doing okay it's not getting brown tips or anything like that so that just goes to show when things grow in your environment it's more acclimated and it tends to do better whereas this one is still shedding leaves at the moment so that is the calathea rosiopicta dottie so the next plant i'd like to talk about is the calathea zabrina so you'll notice that there's a lot of brown tipping going on with these little tiny one there but this one's almost gone this was a gigantic plant when i got it and unfortunately spider mites got a hold of this one calathea sabrina's are one of the variety that get the velvety leaves on it which are just fantastic the other thing you'll notice is that the undersides are just green they don't have that purpley maroonish backing to it because it has that velvety leaf to it they attract dust sometimes and also because the backs of the leaves are green it's much harder to catch that they have spider mites so i've so i missed it for a long time i missed that this had spider mites and it decimated about half the plant before i caught it because spider mites can work really quickly if they've got a nice juicy plant that they really like so this one has been rehabilitation for about a month and a half i've kept the leaves that it had these are all original leaves to the plant and i've managed to keep those the browning hasn't gotten much worse when they get pretty bad like this one here where it's taken over more than you know a quarter to a fifth of the leaf it will just continue to spread but i keep these on here this can still photosynthesize even though a lot of it is brown so i keep it on there to help rejuvenate the plant and i don't know if you can tell but i do have some new growth on this so we've got these two little bunny ears here i've got a growth point right here and then another one right here so it's coming back and it's actually rehabilitated quite a bit to the point where i think it's ready to go back on my claythia shelf over here again now i warned you that i would show you every calathea i have prepare to see the worst calathea i have and there she is the fussiest calathea of all time and this is the calathea or nada pinstripe i i i can't even so this is the lone remaining leaf on my ornato pinstripe i'll take the nursery pot out so you can see what i'm working with here so i've taken the plant out of its cover pot one thing i didn't mention is that with calathea i would highly recommend not potting in terracotta it dries out the soil too much and calatheas really like to stay on the moist side of things so i would recommend keeping them either in ceramic or plastic every single one of my calathea are in plastic i don't think no i don't have any calathea in anything other than plastic at the moment but plastic's not cute so i put them in cover pots that's true of this sabrina as well you know i've got it in a plastic pot and then have this very cute cover pot on it so this is the second calathea or not a pinstripe i've ever owned the first one did something similar where it just started deteriorating nothing i did helped more light less light more humidity nothing really worked on it and i bought this one well after i was actually good at caring for calathea and it still did this it was a huge bushy plant and just did this unfortunately with this or not a pinstripe i just think this is not the plant for me i look at it and it falls apart i love it and it hates me more i leave it alone and it dies of neglect just nothing i do is good enough for this plant so the reason i haven't thrown this thing out yet is because i have two growth points this one is pretty high granted this thing has not grown or moved in weeks but there is another itty-bitty like you can't even see it it's barely poking through the soil another little stump growing and trying to become plant so i'll keep this as long as it tries to survive i keep this one in my little rehabilitation zone which has four plants in it three of them are callathia the zabrina the small rose picked a dotty and then another plant so this one's gonna stay in that rehabilitation zone until it can prove that it wants to live it has not shown me that yet but you gotta prove we gotta work together come on so now we're gonna move on to the plants behind me i'll bring each of them forward so that i can talk about them individually now this butte needs no introduction but i will do my best this is a calathea or nada these are so so unique there is not really another calathea out there quite like it they have these little brush strokes of gray on the inside of the leaf that are just beautiful now this one's kind of like the sabrina where the backsides the leaf are light green is the same color as the front basically it doesn't have that maroon dark red backing to it this one was in the same shipment as that original dottie that died back so this one i ordered from plantarina.com and nothing against her everything shipped beautifully the plant that arrived was just phenomenal and full and beautiful and everything was perfect about it but i ordered it in the winter so not only is the plant trying to acclimate to my house versus a greenhouse it also had to deal with winter travel even with a heat pack that can be pretty stressful on the plant so i got a lot of browning i lost quite a few leaves but i've gotten to the point now where i think it's happy the new leaves were dying off because of either under or over watering and i was having a real problem trying to kind of meet that balance so actually my solution was to try a new pot and this was a shot in the dark so this pot is you don't have to get this one necessarily but it's basically a self-watering pot so i've got this in plastic right here you can see those roots coming through they're crazy and it's got a little puddle of water underneath and this one's kind of fancy because it has a mirror on it where it'll bob up and down and tell you when to water it so when it gets down to about a third of the way down i will fill this little reservoir with distilled water and it does pretty well and it's doing it's doing so well that right now it actually has four growth points and since i got it before i put it in this pot it wasn't growing at all which means that my conditions were not ideal for it so i've got it wet now where it gets good light and i'm watering it the correct amount it's not being over watered so it's not soggy it's not dry it's just perfect this calathea in particular really doesn't like to be wet and really doesn't like to be dry some calatheas will tolerate one or the other i'll consider getting more pots like this for my fussier calatheas to keep that water balance perfect for them and it seems so happy it's got four growth points it's coming up and it's going to be a nice big bushy plant someday i promise next i'm going to move on to my stromanthy varieties i have a trio star i have a sanguine or sangini and then a magic star so all of these are kind of undergoing the same problem they were they've all been attacked by spider mites and i'm working on rehabilitating and keeping that down this one's got these two have managed to get new growth points and things like that which is a good sign that they're happy this one hasn't yet so i'm still treating it i'm still working on it this one also got attacked by my cat if you can see the nice bite marks there so this one's going through the ringer and it's just not happy with me right now so i am working on rehabilitating this but it's not so bad that i have to put it off in a separate corner my magic star here does have a new growth point and it seems to be doing okay now my trio star i was able to catch the spider mites really really early and i'm treating for them um it's actually just got a treatment about three days ago and i try to continue that even though i don't see any evidence of spider mites just because they can very easily come back and come back with a vengeance so this one is going through some of the issues i was talking about with the backing of the leaves so this is a brand new leaf that came out and it's only about a third purple and the rest of it is green that means that this is getting too much light the stramanthi trio star is the most common of these but i'm noticing the other two a lot more in stores as well so keep your eye out for them the foliage is wonderful it's got that nice paint stroke lots of variegation with white going on that is the reason why a lot of people like white fusions and things like that so it has similar coloration but these ones in general are not nearly as fussy mine are just fussy because they're going through a lot of treatments for spider mites right now next up on the list is my calathea rufa barbara now this one i'm going to keep on my knee because it is a big old bushy plant this one i tried keeping on my dining room table and the cats love to chew on it so a lot of the lower leaves are very chewed on and i kept trying to build barricades around it to make sure that they didn't have a comfortable place to sit to chew on them and that did not seem to deter them at all they love chewing on this thing so i've had to put it back on my calathea plant shelf now the clayton roof of barbara does have the dark purple undersides it's also very fuzzy they're not velvety and they're not glossy they are literally fuzzy like little hairs sticking up and it's really really kind of interesting so this one is in kind of a crowded pot right now i think the roots are a little crowded so i've had this one dry out on me pretty fast i'm not sure if that's typical or not i waited too long to water this once you know an extra day or two and the soil was bone dry this thing i don't know if it's because it's huge but it soaks up water like a bandit it's crazy so i came home from work one day and all these leaves were just flat on the table aside from a few in the middle and i just panicked a lot of them were bent and it looked like they were going to snap off so actually what i did was i tied a little piece of twine around them and watered it and i've been keeping the twine on there for a few days this only happened the underwatering only happened about a week ago so i've kept it wrapped in twine to get those stems to re-harden so that hopefully i can save as many as possible and it seems to be working about a dozen of these leaves were laying flat on the table with their stems bent and now when i pull this down and check on it only one or two are bent so i really think this is a good solution in case that ever happens to you the soil for this one stays very dry probably because of how big it is it just sucks all the water out so one thing i did so if you buy plants from a home depot or a lowe's a lot of times you'll see these strings in the bottom of it and then a stake where it'll loop around that's basically a self-watering device so i ended up using it for this plant and the plant because of the shape of the pot versus the cash po it doesn't sit all the way in the bottom so if i have this and i have water in the bottom of the pot it'll continually suck that up so i don't have it drying out too fast on me again this is another one that i would definitely have in consideration with the self watering pot so that is the calathea roof of barbara this is my calathea worst whiskey eye or better known as velvet touch this one like the sabrina has very velvety leaves it has those nice dark undersides unlike the sabrina and it's just i honestly think this is my favorite calathea it's very tolerant of under and over watering cons considering it's no you know philodendron or anything like that it's not a pothos but it's definitely the easiest this well the mirantis are always going to be easier but this one would be my easiest true calathea that i own and you would never think that from looking at it at least in my care that's what i've experienced so she's a little bit of a leaner but you know we still love her just the pattern on the leaves is fantastic the one problem i've noticed with these is they will get brown tips even if they're happy it seems like so you know you kind of have to weigh that out if you're okay with that you always have little brown leaves but the rest of the plant is so so incredibly gorgeous that it doesn't you know have brown tips all you want like i love her so much this one is fairly thirsty it's kind of like the roof of barbara where i pretty much touch the soil every day or every other day on this one to see if it needs any water and this one i can kind of tell if it needs water based on if the top of the soil is dry as soon as the top of the soil feels even a little bit dry you water it and it loves it it's super happy it's also been growing pretty well in my care i've got this one that's brand new and i've got another shoot coming up this one up here i don't know if you can see it let me lower this for you this one at the very top is brand new and i've got another one getting ready to unfurl right now and yeah this one by far and away i think is my favorite calathea both when i weigh in care difficulty and appearance this one's high up there and i absolutely love it and the velvety leaves just oh it's it's beautiful i love love love it last but not least i have my only maranta which is a maranta lemon lime this one is a weed it grows so fast every day in the spring it'll have anywhere between four and eight new shoots coming up i can't keep up with it i've taken cuttings from it and replanted it in it is just one of the fastest growers now i had a disaster about three days ago where my cat got on the table here i was able to catch her in time before she did too much damage but she focused her ire on the maranta she ended up chewing off the tips of three brand new leaves that were unrolling and i'm not even worried about it because even though she chewed off and basically ruined three leaves i can see three other leaves that are coming up for four other leaves so right now it has seven growth points like this thing will not stop growing so in terms of care this one is by far the easiest i kind of bought this plant as an afterthought i'm not as into kind of the the maranta that will vine like this uh the red the one with the red veins which is a lot more common i'm just it doesn't tickle my fancy for whatever reason i liked the lemon lime okay the pattern is very unique and it's super intriguing it's just for whatever reason you know it's never been my personal favorite as far as looks go but you can't deny the results that this thing just loves to be alive and wants to grow non-stop i'm having problems trying to come up with what i'm going to end up doing with this whether i'm going to let it vine or i should start a second plant continue putting more into the soil what have you now this one does tolerate underwatering quite a bit it doesn't like being over watered at all the watering style for this one i gauge it more close to an allocation where it doesn't like being over watered but it can tolerate underwatering a little bit you know if you're using a moisture meter this one can get down to a three and be just fine i have experienced no brown tips on this one whatsoever and it's growing very very well in medium light and highlight because this one is actually closest to my grow lights and it's it loves it i think honestly part of me wants to take it away from the grow lights because i wanted to stop growing it's getting too big i don't know what i'm going to do with it it's going to take over half my table this one is by far the best grower easiest to care for so if you are interested in this type of plant you know it'll reward you in spades now that i've shown you my collection i want to reiterate some of the things i mentioned before never put it in a terra cotta pot keep it in plastic or in ceramic when you transplant them or when you decide to split them up and propagate i would disturb the roots as little as humanly possible so let's say i wanted to split up this stromanthi trio star what i would do is basically take the soil bowl out of the pot and take a nice big sharp knife and cut it exactly down the middle under the leaves of course but you know i would pick a spot and just cut straight through the soil bowl and put them right back in a pot with supplemental soil i would not try and remove any of the soil from the pot if the undersides of the leaves are nice and purple if they are purple on the undersides and they start fading and giving you kind of spotty coloring like this one give it less light if your foliage starts getting really really green if it's got variegation on it and you're losing that coloring give it less light they do not like direct sunlight and they're very finicky when it comes to too much light but that doesn't mean you know stick it in a dark corner or anything like that you know if it's close to a window and that starts to happen move it two feet back something like that just kind of slowly steadily move it back because the leaves aren't damaged they're all fine and they're going to photosynthesize and be great but if you want that extra you know beautiful color that these can you know display in optimal conditions just you know slowly change your conditions until the calathea looks the way you want and is happy and thriving i maintain the humidity in my house by using automatic humidifiers when i say automatic that means i can set it to a certain humidity range and it'll automatically kick on when it's low and turn off when it reaches that that point so i've got a few humidifiers that are just basic turn on turn off varieties and that tends to make everything too humid it starts getting wet you start worrying about you know damage to your home things like that so i really like the automatic ones this one this one is the levoit which you kind of see all over the place i bought it because i noticed a lot of the plant youtubers i follow loved it and had it and all that stuff i think it's a little overkill i don't use the warm mist feature i found that it was causing fungal growth on the top of the soil and then on the plants themselves so i tend to avoid using the warm mist and i tend to keep my house on the warmer side anyway so i don't necessarily need it to heat up the air around the house but if you are interested in this type of humidifier i can certainly link it below for you it certainly does the does everything i need it to it's fantastic the customer service is really great i had one that the humidity meter on it was just completely broken i messaged a few videos of it running on full blast even though the humidity was over 90 in the room at that time and i just showed them video proving like hey this is what's happening they told me to try a few things they didn't work so they ended up sending me a new unit so i definitely like the customer service that levoit offers and they're certainly really good and if you do want to use the warm mist because your air is cold something like that absolutely go for it it's it's certainly like i would never get rid of it it's certainly perfect for everything i need it's just a little overkill so if i was gonna buy a new one in the future i'd probably buy something with less that one less feature so that i can save a little bit of money when it comes down to it calatheas really like humidity and they like medium indirect light and they like to keep their soil moist but not wet definitely not dry so that pretty much sums up my calathea collection thank you so much for watching this video it was a slog i know there was a lot to get through don't forget to give it a like and subscribe to my channel i'm a teeny tiny brand new youtuber so every little bit helps thank you for watching thank you for visiting my channel and i'll see you next time bye

Channel: Soiled Plant

Views: 21,452

Rating: 4.8671589 out of 5

Keywords: how to care for calathea, calathea zebrina, calathea orbifolia, house plants safe for cats, how to care for calathea zebrina, calathea white fusion, calathea dottie, calathea warscewiczii, stromanthe magic star, stromanthe sanguinea, stromanthe triostar, maranta lemon lime, calathea, calathea rufibarba, calathea velvet touch, velvet touch calathea, calathea collection, plant collection 2020, calathea collection 2020, prayer plant care planterina, soiled plant

Id: wq5-Ch6b1Q8

Length: 32min 3sec (1923 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 05 2020