5 month update.
The Anthurium Dorayaki X that high school friend Fifi gave to me as a little baby late March has grown 3 new leaves and the latest leaf is absolutely MASSIVE!
5 months into the plant hobby and I’ve yet to kill a plant (this makes me happy!). I’m really unhappy with how the cabinet is looking though. It’s lost the jungle vibe as I’ve had to move my Alocasia Watsoniana, Longiloba and Frydek out as they’ve outgrew the cabinet.
The Queen Anthurium was my dream plant. I have 2 of them, one which I got as a baby and another which I bought with one large beaten up leaf. Both have grown new leaves but none of the new leaves are perfect. The large one has grown what would have been a much bigger new leaf, but for some reason the whole bottom half of the leaf is completely missing!
I’m aware that you’re not meant to touch new Queen Anthurium leaves as this can cause marks and imperfections when the leaf matures. I swear that I didn’t touch the new leaves at all, but the damage seems to have been done as the leaves were unfurling. Super upsetting and frustrating.
The cabinet was looking really empty so I moved a couple of cuttings into the cabinet; a Monstera Peru and Albo (which an old high school friend so generously gifted me!). Both had shown no new growth at all since I got them (about 2 months ago) but just a few weeks in the cabinet and amazingly the Peru is about to push out 2 new leaves and the Albo has a new leaf unfurling! I put it down to the cabinet having higher humidity and also warmer temperature (we’re heading into winter in Sydney Australia).
I also bought 3 more babies for the top shelf; a Philodendron El Choco Red, Gloriosum and a Thai Constellation. They’re still in moss at the moment but I’ll transfer them to leca (like all my other plants) when the roots develop a little more.
Whilst I’m upset that I’ve lost the jungle vibe of having huge leaves in the cabinet, it’s not all bad! The plants are all getting more light now (especially the plants at the bottom which were living in a lot of shade under the huge leaves of the Longiloba and Wastoniana), there’s more air flow in the cabinet and the plants that I moved out seem to be doing just fine outside of the cabinet (no new growth but no negative signs despite it much lower humidity and much colder temps).