My Favorite Plants of Spring 2024

Introduction

Hey everyone! Spring is in full swing these days. I'm not sure about you, but this is my favorite time of the year! In these few months of wonderful weather, our plants begin to wake back up again and start to grow. I always have a few plants that stand out to me in the springtime and I just like to root for them a little extra compared to the rest. I figured what better way to share my second blog post ever than to share some of those plants with you. I hope you enjoy reading about the plants I chose as my favorite plants of spring 2024!

Philodendron verrucosum

Okay okay, I know, this one is a well-known contender and I see them all over Instagram and in so many people's homes these days, but to be honest, there is a reason they are so popular. They have such velvety, soft leaves that just are mesmerizing to feel. The vivid coloring with bight veining contrasts against a dark green leaf. If you thought the front was pretty, the back sides of the leaf are a beautiful red color. To top it all off, THEY HAVE FUZZ! These Philodendrons have a fun little thing called Pubescence. The pubescence is like a bunch of little bright green hairs all over the petiole. Its such a cook and unique trait of this plant.

This Philodendron species is endemic to Central America - Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Don't be fooled by the dreamy jungly images those countries conjure up in us plant nerds minds, verrucosum are native to the cloud forests that are found at elevations around 6,500 feet (1980 meters). Though they are still stunning rainforests just with a touch of chilly air. These plants prefer a bit of a cooler temperature than many of our other favorite philodendrons. Around 65F to 70F or about 18C to 20C seems to be an optimal temperature for most people who grow them.

Because verrucosum originates in cloud forests, they definitely prefer a higher humidity. I have heard many people recommend a minimum of 50% humidity to ensure it grows well. Me myself and I, however, know that it is incredibly wasteful and hard to keep my humidity up that high. So rather than blasting a humidifier all day, I tend to create plant displays and groupings. Plants emit water vapor through a process called evapotranspiration and when you group them, they all benefit from the humidity they create together. This is the best way I have been able to keep humidity levels consistently higher in Tucson without using gallons of water a week and risking the mold and water damage that comes from attempting to keep it so humid.

Now one last thing I want to point out about these guys before we move on.. They are semi-epiphytic plants. They start their lives as a little sprout growing out of the soil or in the detritus stuck in the branches of a tree. Once they have grown a bit, the stems will reach out and begin to search for something to climb. They use their aerial roots to hug onto a tree and climb up toward the light. If they are not able to climb, they stay a bit on the small size, but when they climb, the leaves get MASSIVE! Now it's pretty apparent that I don't have a giant tree in my house for this guy to climb up, so I use moss poles. These are a great alternative and have so many benefits for propagation and nutrient/water uptake. I won't keep you here to listen to me blab about moss poles just yet, but don't you worry, ill have a post coming out soon about them!

I have grown my verrucosum for about 3 years now and it has been a challenge at times, but still a wonderful experience. The picture up above shows my second time growing it up a moss pole. The first time I grew it... I dropped it, PLEASE DON'T TELL ON ME! I went through the painstaking task of propagating and restarting. If you have never propagated a verrucosum before, let me just warn you that it can be a bit of a nightmare. So many of my cuttings died off in the water after a few weeks and never grew a single root. I honestly thought I lost the plant. Thankfully, I was able to save her and get some wet sticks to sprout in a moss prop box over probably 6 or 7 months. Once it got growing again and found its moss pole, it really took off and I am once again amazed at how beautiful this plant is to grow.

Anthurium radicans x luxurians

This beauty has been in my collection and care for a little over a year now. One thing I will say right off the bat is that this lady is a hardy one, probably the hardiest of all my Anthurium. I don't know much about this one, but this year it seems to have caught my eye and I think it's next on the list for me to just obsess over. The bubbly, scaled, glossyness of this plant's leaves is just spectacular. If you look closely, you can see it has quite pink/red stems that pop against the dark green leaves. The inflorescences that it puts out are also a vivid pink/red color! All I can say is what's not to love about this one 🤤

While I am not sure of the exact origination of this Anthurium hybrid, I do know that Anthurium originates in South and Central American rainforests. Contrasting the philodendron highlighted above, these guys are more of a floor dweller so they prefer a bit less light which is great for indoor growing! This also means that they grow a bit more compact than the climbing plants we all know and love. Just know that when I say compact, I don't mean small, just that the stem will have fairly small inter-node spacing (the biggest leaf in my house is from my Anthurium crystallinum hybrid).

Sarracenia ? x ember

This is the newest plant in my collection and only my third carnivorous plant. When I say I don't know much about it, I can't even figure out what the hybrid is even with the label from the shop. Even though I don't know much, I am so excited to start my venture into carnivorous plants! I hope that one day I can create a cool paludarium using different varieties of these beauties. I still have a lot to learn about these before I even think about starting that project though. For now, I can just look at how cute it is on its own haha.

You can see the tag in the picture so if you know what svb stands for in this hybrid, please let me know! For now I will do a bit of research and enjoy watching it (and its little hitchhiking friends) grow up over this spring.

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Well, I think it is time for me to slide back into my day-to-day, but thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!

Happy growing everyone :)

-Hunter