How to Grow Commercial Anthurium .

Anthurium is known for its beautiful foliage. This is one of few ornamental plants which has long live beauty. It's not so hard to grow this plant and you can even grow it yourself and make commercial anthurium.

I still remember when anthurium made many people in my country so crazy about. The market of anthurium was so "hot" at that time around 2006 that an A-class of Anthurium plowmanii croat (popularly known as Waves of Love anthurium) could reach an unimaginable price up to more than 65,000 US$ !

So if one says that growing ornamental plants like anthurium is nothing, think again !.

Growing quality anthurium is basically determined by three main factors: the planting medium, quality anthurium seeds, and the treatments during you nurture it.

Planting medium: You can prepare your own anthurium planting media yourself which consists of compost, peat moss, burned rice husks in comparison respectively 25%: 50%:25%,  or if you don't have the materials needed you can buy ready-for-use medium at nurseries of florists.

Compost, peat moss and burned rice husks you use must be totally clean from nematodes, snail eggs, and other parasites. Pouring the planting medium with boiling water can be one way  for sterilization, or you can heat those materials under the sun before use.

Anthurium Seeds: Seeds which are going to be used as seedlings must be harvested from healthy and mature anthurium berries which grow on the spadix and look vividly red. The mature-red berries are succulent and contain one or more light brown or black-colored seeds inside.

To get the seed out of the flesh, squeeze a berry and you'll see one or two seeds with slimy surface.

Wash the seeds in a net so that they won't be swept away by tap water and soak in water for around 6 hours.

Prepare a shallow container with the planting medium in it. Make rows of holes with 3 cm in distance to each other and bury the seeds inside the holes then slowly spray water to the media to make it damp.

The seeds will show their first buds in1 or 2 weeks, wait for 3-4 moths until they have strong roots before you move them to separated pots.

You can move the seedlings to individual pots when they have some leaves and show their rigid roots and the best time to move seedlings to the pots is in the morning.

Prepare the growing medium for the seedlings transfer. Fist, fill a 4-inch pot until it fills 2/3rd of the volume. Make sure the pot has good drainage and the planting medium has sufficient porosity   to let the water flows down out of the pot when you water it. Too wet medium will be bad for the roots and make them rotten. Carefully move the seedling from its germination place  to the pot  then add more medium until it reaches 3/4 of the pot volume. Slowly pour water to damp it.

Place the newly transferred seedlings in shady locations where sunlight reaches the place indirectly.

The anthuriums can be transferred to bigger flower pots when they're around 8 months old. Carefully  transfer is necessary in order not to damage its roots and leaves which may influence the anthurium life and value (the price of anthurium is determined by the appearance and the number of its leaves).

Add more planting medium to the pot since you use a bigger one now.