Caladium Dormancy and the Wake-Up Window

70°F Soil floor for reliable sprout

Read the tuber, time the wake-up, and you can pull two flushes of painted leaves from a single season.

The picks

Caladium bicolor 'Florida Sweetheart'

Fancy-leaf · compact strap type

A heat-tolerant strap-leaf cultivar bred at the University of Florida, with rose-pink centers and a narrow green margin. It runs short — 10 to 14 inches — so it holds together in a pot without the floppy collapse big fancy-leaf types are prone to. Tubers wake fast and reliably, often within two weeks of warm soil. If you only learn one Caladium's rhythm, learn this one.

Best starter

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