Anthurium plants are among the prettiest houseplants that you can buy. They look amazing, and caring for them isn’t too much to handle for most people.
One reason why these plants are so popular is that they produce beautiful flowers. The flowers are so pretty that they’re going to add a lot of charm to your home.
If you’re new to owning anthuriums, you might not be sure how to make these plants bloom. Is there something special that you need to do to make this happen?
Continue reading to learn more about helping anthuriums to bloom. This will help you to enjoy your new plant to the fullest.
When Do Anthuriums Bloom?
You’ll be happy to hear that anthuriums have the potential to bloom all year. They generally go through cycles of blooming, though.
When you care for these plants well, they’ll bloom for around three months. You get to enjoy three months of flowering before the plant goes through a few months of not flowering.
After a few months have passed, the plant will be ready to flower for three months again. Then the process just continues to repeat itself.
This is assuming that you’re caring for the anthurium plant optimally. You need to water the plant well, keep it in the right type of soil, prune it as necessary, and fertilize the plant.
Later, you’ll learn more about what needs to be done to make the plant bloom and stay healthy. For now, you just need to know that these plants can easily bloom all year when kept as houseplants.
How Often Do Anthuriums Bloom?
As mentioned above, anthuriums bloom for three months at a time. They bloom for three months, and then they go through a few months of not producing flowers.
The flowers themselves will last for around six weeks, but the plant will continuously bloom during the three-month period. This schedule is pretty consistent when the plant is being kept in optimal conditions.
You’ll enjoy two to three blooming periods each year. The period when the plant doesn’t produce flowers will pretty much always last for a few months before the plant is ready to bloom again.
This is an easy schedule to get used to. The blooms aren’t going to be produced only during the spring or summer like most houseplants that you might be used to.
You get to enjoy anthurium blooms all year with the proper care. This should help to make your home look that much nicer.
Do Anthurium Flowers Die?
Yes, anthurium blooms don’t last forever. Above, you learned that each bloom usually lasts for around six weeks.
After six weeks have passed, you’ll see that the flower will start to wither. You can prune these flowers away once they begin to wilt.
It’s recommended to prune the plant because you don’t want it to waste energy on spent blooms. Plants will continue to send energy to dying blooms and dying leaves if you don’t do regular maintenance.
Pruning is simple and just involves using a pair of pruning shears. You need to cut away dead or dying leaves and flowers.
This is something that you should do as necessary. It’s normal to do regular pruning when taking care of anthuriums.
Sometimes this is done to help shape the plant and keep it looking nice. It also helps to keep the plant from becoming lopsided.
You don’t want the anthurium plant to struggle to stay upright in its pot. So pruning is something that you’ll get used to doing as an anthurium owner.
How to Keep Anthurium Blooming
To keep your anthurium plant blooming, you need to give it ideal conditions to grow. Make sure that the plant receives enough sunlight each day so that it will have the energy to grow.
You also need to water the plant often enough. Make sure that the plant is planted in nutrient-rich soil.
The soil needs to be well-draining, too. These plants can easily become overwatered if you don’t approach things the right way.
Generally, it’s best to use coarse soil that drains well. People often make custom soil blends for these plants, using ingredients such as peat moss.
Give the plant at least eight hours of bright indirect sunlight daily. Ensure that the humidity level in the room is high enough for the plant.
These plants do well with humidity levels that are 50% or higher. So you might need to put a small plant humidifier near the anthurium to get the best results.
You can feed the plant to help it keep blooming, too. This involves giving the plant fertilizer that’s high in phosphorus.
It’s common to use 10-30-30 fertilizers when caring for anthuriums. Just make sure that you dilute the fertilizer and don’t fertilize the plant more than once per month.
If you do all of this, you should be able to keep the plant blooming all year. It will go through a few months of not producing blooms after three months of blooming, but it’s nice that you can enjoy the flowers so often.
What to Do with Anthuriums after Flowering
After the plant has started flowering, you need to continue to take care of it. Water the plant properly without going overboard.
Continue to give the plant adequate sunlight and humidity conditions to keep it healthy. When some of the blooms start to die, you’ll want to prune them away so the plant will have the energy to devote to producing new blooms.
Essentially, you’ll be performing standard plant maintenance to keep the anthurium looking nice. This won’t be difficult, but it does require a bit of work.
When pruning these plants, make sure that you’re using sterilized pruning shears. Pruning shears should always be sterilized with alcohol when you’re getting ready to use them.
It helps to keep the plants safe. The pruning process is fairly straightforward, but you should know that anthuriums won’t produce new blooms on the same stalk.
So you make cuts at the base of the plant and cut the stalk instead of just removing the flower. It’s a bit different than deadheading other houseplants that you might be more familiar with.
Cut away the flower stalks as they become spent. Continue to provide normal care, and your plant will keep producing blooms for months.
The Anthurium Lifespan
Expect anthurium plants to stay alive for three to five years as houseplants. After this amount of time has passed, the plant won’t be able to keep going on.
This might sound disappointing at first, but it doesn’t have to be. Most people simply propagate their anthuriums to keep them around indefinitely.
You don’t have to just let the main anthurium plant die and get rid of it. It’s easy to propagate these plants by taking three-inch cuttings and rooting them.
Propagation is decidedly simple, and you can make many anthurium plants over time. So take the time to propagate your plant before it has reached the end of its lifespan.
This will allow you to grow new “baby plants” that you can keep around. It’s a way to reset the timer and keep the pretty anthuriums around for longer periods.
You don’t have to say goodbye to anthuriums when you propagate them. Keep this in mind so you can keep enjoying the sight of anthuriums in bloom.
Be Careful When Watering
Be careful when watering these plants. You don’t want to put the plant in a bad position where it’ll get soggy.
These plants don’t do well when you get the soil overly soggy. You need to hold back on watering them a little bit until the soil dries out.
If you water the plant too often, it can lead to issues such as root rot. This could wind up killing the plant if you’re not careful.
Typically, anthuriums will need to be watered once per week, but you need to check the soil with your fingers first. Don’t water on a static schedule because this could cause you to make mistakes.
Check the soil first and only give the plant around ½ of a cup of water each time. If you stick to this, it’ll be easy to get good results.
Use the Right Soil
Remember to use the right soil for these plants. Know that anthuriums do best when kept in coarse and well-draining soil.
You can make a custom soil blend using ingredients such as perlite, vermiculite, peat moss, and fertilizer. Or you can simply buy the orchid potting mix.
Orchid potting mix is great because it’s readily available and it provides the right drainage that anthuriums need. So don’t hesitate to use an orchid potting mix if you want to make things easy.
Final Thoughts
Having more information about how these plants bloom will help you out a lot. Now you know that anthuriums are plants that can bloom all year.
With proper care, it’s easy to keep these plants blooming. You just need to give them enough sunlight while also taking care of other basic needs.
Fertilizing the plant helps it to have the nutrients that it needs to bloom as well. Do your best to care for your anthurium, and it’ll bloom for three months at a time.
The plant can keep on blooming after going through a few months when it doesn’t produce flowers. So you get to enjoy the pretty flowers rather often when caring for anthuriums properly.
This will be a stellar plant to own when you want to have a pretty plant that produces flowers. It adds color to your home while also being fairly easy to care for.
You know that the plant can bloom often, and getting it to bloom isn’t overly difficult. Now it’s simply up to you to follow the advice above so that everything can go as smoothly as possible.
Growing up with a mom who filled her home (inside and out) with all sorts of plants, Lisa got her start in gardening at a young age. Living now on her own with a home and yard full of plants (including an indoor greenhouse), she shares all the gardening tips she’s gained over the years.