Calathea Q&A, pt. 1: Four Questions

[Music] welcome to my first calathea Q&A my question and answer these are just a few of the questions that I've gotten a lot over a short period of time here that I think I've never answered in a video before so I'm putting them all into one spot just a quick warning I am NOT an expert what I'm sharing with you is based off of my own research and off with my own experience and sometimes just kind of observations that I've made so take that with a grain of salt understand that you are an expert about the conditions in your own home and the things that I do might not work for you but maybe they're helpful so let's get started how much light do you give your color the--is and why I realize now that I've never answered this question in depth or with any visual examples so let's start you've seen my doggy a lot probably lately but this isn't an Eastern window it gets stacked morning light and then there's a structure outside reflecting light back so it gets a very bright indirect light for the rest of the day and I've gotten it to flower quite a bit I think it's because it does get a lot more light than you would think I think given calathea based on a lot of the recommendations that I see that they're low light plants yes and the idea of low light and what that is I think varies so for me if I had this further away from an Eastern window I don't think that would be enough light and I certainly don't think it would flower if my son go nians can handle this trust me the calathea can somebody did mention in the comments that calathea is grow in their area outdoors and that mine are getting too much light they like a lot of shade they're in densely forested areas here's my Friday at flowered as well in a Southwest facing window but it's indirect light but very very bright my picture oughtta Argentia in an Eastern window it flowered December and January I wish I never moved it into the plant room you can see its flowers here so the light inside even the direct light because of the type of glass my windows and the screens and even the blinds though they're open is farm it's like far less light than full shade outdoors full shade outdoors is way brighter and it's actually too bright in my region for kalakeyas if you take a kallithea where I live now this is a picture out of Argentina and you put it in full shade outside its leaves will curl almost immediately to protect itself because the light is way too intense so in my house getting some direct morning Sun that doesn't bother my Kalin Thea's at all when I have a larger window this is a sliding glass door I mimicked the outdoors and I have made betel-leaf fix there this Margarita is getting that filtered light because it is a much larger window it's in a much more direct spot for the sun rays you can see I've got some cat hair here we're going to talk about that I got questions about that it really likes that any kallithea that has been here loves being here and so I would say that the idea that kalakeyas are these really low light plants I'm sure they could be but I don't want I don't think I could get Mike healthiest a flower indoors if I didn't give them this kind of light and this is the floor right under that margarita so you can see the kind of early morning Sun that it's getting and this is the culprit of cat hair my piccata is flowering again it was flowering when I got it and now it's flowering again and so the idea of the what low light is in your house in an Eastern window getting some direct light through a screen and through glass that's meant to really protect the happy you know that energy use in the house for less than outside in full shade where do I make cuts on my calavius and I always say like if you have an old leaf I'll cut it down as close to the surface of the soil as possible but then some really smart people have been asking me recently very closely together asking me well how do I avoid cutting off any potential new growth so here's an example of a plant it's a halo that I got and this is how it came from a nursery you can see that it probably had an old damaged fleet and they cut it right off at the leaf base right so most mature kallithea is that I'd get that come directly from nurseries not from a retail outlet I tend to see these cuts and I think sometimes they make them right before they ship them you can see here that at the apex of these two stems there could be potential new growth and the way that you avoid hurting growth that is on the same existing rhizome or any new growth that might come up through that exact rhizome you just cut it off at the leaf base and usually usually what happens is that it leaves that stem and damaged and you don't for any new growth that might be coming up from the right zone now of course calathea is have creeping rhizomes that's how you would propagate them through division right the rhizome will grow under the soil come up in a new area new growth will come up in a new area that looks really attached plant and you can't eventually once it starts to mature that new growth separate them and I did that with maestro mathy last year and you can see here that even though it was divided this plant has it actually has two new creeping rhizomes that have forms new growth but let's I don't have any kalakeyas to cut but in the rod to see a family they're very similar you see people call these straw mafia calathea is all the time so I'll show you how I cut the leaves versus the stems are the growth let's take a look at where I would cut this tip so it was a little close to the window which was drying over winter but I also thought I saw a spider mites on it I kind of got spider mite fever and I took it outside and I host this thing down around the time that my picture Argentia had problems so I prefer when I can cut diagonally like this and it mimics somewhat the shape of the tip but you can't always do that I do leave a little border of brown I don't like creating new wounds but let's take a closer look you can see here this rhizome this new growth that's come out of a rhizome and so it's going to create an existing sort of structure like you see behind the new Grove and there's an older leaf that's on it sometimes you don't have to cut at all gently hug I could tell that this was getting discolored so that there was likely some damage that was happening below the soil and sure enough this was starting to just kind of wither up from the bottom out and here's the other rhizome this other creeping Roy so I'm gonna have to repot this I didn't think this thing these are really fast growers I'm gonna have to do something so I pushed them a little further back from the north-facing window here is my monstera deliciosa that I had to cut up I got very eating another victim of the plant room it was it was starting to stretch now how is the neem oil soil drench actually doing has it damaged my calathea made a whole video about this and as you can see the calathea is recovering a lot of the damage here is going to be from something I didn't discuss with you the first time this looks like the start of mold or fungus on the leaf that was from the humidifier leaving moisture to just sit on the surface of the leaf a lot of the burnt tips that you see that's from tap water that that's because I took it outside and I host it down when I first saw the spider mites the new growth looks so beautiful and it is a little bit damaged because the roots are damaged from the tap water that I use however the plant is recovering so the the neem oil soil trench it's been the most effective thing I've ever used but I do have to use it at least once a month and I also at least one to two times a month need to treat the plant topically with neem oil but the leaves are sitting in a much more relaxed position the plant is the less stressed and there's a lot more movement happening now when you use tap water look at this some of the new growth this is one of the first pieces that came up burnt to a crisp this is what will happen if you use tap water over time you will see this stunted mutilated growth come up that just completely burned so if you're seeing that on your plant right how do you get this - how do I get distilled water then especially somebody wanted to know without generating a bunch of waste I use a countertop water distiller this is from h2o labs not sponsored I bought this this is model 300s s it's my latest model and this is a glass this is really the only thing I had assembled was getting the handle on this kara but I just set this thing down in the sink I filled it up with water I want to say that it's approximately a gallon there's a line inside of the canister that lets me know kind of the max and then I look what it can take if I put the lid on and what it does is it keeps me from getting water everywhere I'm notorious for just dumping things and to kind of keep the water in the canister having the lid on for me it really helps because I don't like to go slow but you can see I put the top of the unit on it's got a fan on it so it is a little bit noisy so if you're sensitive to noise you might want to do this overnight when you're not in the room if you're not sensitive to noise this isn't really gonna bother you it's a kind of low hum that the machine makes but the water will turn to steam evaporate and then it's going to become water again and come out for that spout now tap water leaves a lot of residue so this citric acid that comes with it and put it in a couple tablespoons when I see buildup on the bottom of the sides and turn the unit on without the top on and what happens is then that it breaks that stuff up and you see some of it here floating in the water it is hot so you would be careful this is hot water it's making the water very hot and I can empty it out when the water when I found this log that no water is cooled down and the residue comes right out so what actually happened to your plant room that's a good question it was a disaster so one of the problems with the plant room is that you see I've moved everything around the window so where I'm at in the summer the Sun actually tracks really far north and so this room gets a lot less light and it doesn't have enough or it didn't have enough air circulation and so running a humidifier even once a day was actually creating a condition where moisture was sitting on some of the leaves and that can really start to cause fungal problems mold problems so we had plants that were over humidified and then not humidified enough as I was figuring it out so I've gotten things kind of balanced and healthy again cross your fingers for me I can do a more detailed video about it later but that's kind of what happened in here and this is what it looks like right this second I've moved a lot of plants out by the way they're back all over the house how many pets do I have I've gotten this question a lot because I mentioned cat hair on my plants all of the time so I have four pets I've got two cats and two dogs but this is the main culprit she likes to clean ourselves by the plants and rub herself on the plants and you can see here this is my dog she actually has a little bit of a cap on her right now you'll see her paw that cat hair buffer knows that's why the sheet is on the bed now this is our newest addition to the house and he sheds a lot and I have a feeling that their hair together is going to be just a disaster but one I'm more than willing to deal with but these are my all of my pads except for one I have a very elusive calf of you who you don't see her she's hard to get on film but maybe someday so I hope that this answered this these are the bulk of questions that I get I get the same questions over and over again a lot of times because people are smart and great minds think alike so if you have a question that you've never answer you feel free leave that in the comments and I can make a pursuit of this video at another date but I hope that this answer for those of you who are wondering about different things I'm not an expert but I'm definitely willing to share what I've learned what I know or what I'm doing at the moment so until next time be well and take care [Music]

Channel: Addy Beez

Views: 9,721

Rating: 4.9583335 out of 5

Keywords: calathea question and answer, calathea care, how much light do calatheas need, are calatheas low light plants, calathea light requirements, how to get rid of old calathea leaves, how to cut calathea leaves, countertop water distiller, counter top water distiller, calathea distilled water, water distiller, where to get distilled water for plants, plants that need distilled water, calathea q and a, calathea how to, calathea flower, how to get calathea to flower

Id: ennApm33-M0

Length: 13min 32sec (812 seconds)

Published: Sun May 31 2020