Calathea

A Calathea plant does not need direct sunlight but it does need light.

A Calathea plant does not like to be in direct sunlight as in its natural environment it grows in leafy tropical areas which means that it will be protected from direct sunlight by other lights and won’t be able to tolerate strong rays.

It should be able to tolerate medium to low light but will do best in bright light. A good placement for this plant would be on an east-facing windowsill, or if you do have a south facing windowsill then consider investing in a sheer curtain to keep the strong sun off your plant.

A Calathea can grow in low light but obviously prefers brighter lights.

How To Know If My Calathea Has Too Much Sunlight

If your Calathea is in an area that is receiving too much light or direct sunlight then don’t worry, the plant will tell you. Some things that your plant might do if this is the case include:

Lose it’s colouring. If the Calathea is under light that is too bright then it’s colour or patterns may fade making it look relatively plain compared to other plants of the same type.

Its tips may crisp. Another indicator that your plant isn’t receiving enough light is that its plants may become dry and crispy. Some might even become brown and even die. Crispy tips can also be a sign that your plant isn’t receiving enough water or humidity so make sure that this isn’t the case before you move your plant away from a well lit area, as Calathea can be thirsty plants who like to be in a humid environment.

How Do I Know If My Calathea Isn’t Receiving Enough Light

If your Calathea isn’t receiving enough light then you will notice a reduced rate of growth or even a full standstill. If you find that your Calathea isn’t growing much then try moving it to an area that is better lit. Monitor your plant and move it’s position accordingly.

Calathea can be fussy plants and can react badly if they don’t like the environment they’ve been put into. Unfortunately it’s not always easy to work out what’s wrong with your plant as they are also sensitive to draughts, drying out and dry air.

So in addition to making sure your plant it receiving the correct amount of light, you need to check the moisture, humidity and draught requirements for your plant and learn how to respond if your Calathea is in need of a change in its environment.

When working out the light requirements for a certain type of plant, the best thing you can do is to look at it’s natural environment and try to recreate that as best as you can inside of your home.

A Calathea plant can grow in low light but that doesn’t mean no light. Like every plant, a Calathea needs sunlight to grow. However, a Calathea doesn’t like direct light or strong sunlight. Your Calathea will grow best in bright but indirect light.

With this in mind, try to avoid a south-facing windowsill unless you have a sheer curtain as the sun can be too strong and may damage your plant. (Of course this may be different if you live somewhere that is in cloud coverage for the majority of the time).

During the winter an east or west facing windowsill will help your plant to get enough light and in the summer you might even get away with placing your Calathea on a north facing windowsill.

Of course this isn’t an exact science and the most important thing you can do is to react to your plant. So if you have your plant on an east-facing windowsill during the summer, and you live somewhere that gets a lot of sun and you notice your plants suffering, don’t feel that you need to leave your plant where it is. You can move it away from the window and see how it goes. Similarly if you don’t think your plant is getting enough light then you can change it’s location or move it closer to a window.

And remember that where you live may affect this placement. If you live somewhere that gets very little light in the winter then you’re probably going to need to do some different placement to somewhere near the equator.

Reacting to your plants needs is more important than following instructions to the letter.

Problems With Your Calathea Receiving Too Much Light

If your Calathea receives too much light then some of the things you might notice is that the colouring and patterns on your Calathea begin to fade. If you notice this happening then chances are you need to move your Calathea to somewhere with a bit less sunlight.

Another problem you might face is that your plant might develop brown and crispy leaves but this can also come about from a lack of humidity so check your humidity levels as well as the light situation before you move your plant.

Problems With Your Calathea Receiving Too Little Light

Too little light can also be damaging to your Calathea. With too little light you will experience a slow in growth in your plant and it might even stop growing altogether.

To ensure your Calathea continues to grow but does not lose it’s colour or become sunburned, make sure you expose it to bright indirect light and learn how to respond to your plant if it exhibits any of the symptoms we have mentioned.

Don’t be afraid to move your plant’s location and to try and different levels of brightness to see what works for you. Just make sure that you keep an eye on your plant to see what it needs.

A Calathea isn’t a particularly easy plant to grow but it also isn’t as difficult as some other plants. It would probably fall into a mid range of difficulty in terms of ease of growth.

The Calathea can be difficult to look after but if you are able to adapt to its needs and you have the right amount of light and humidity then you should be able to grow your Calathea.

If you provide the right conditions for your Calathea then you should have no bother growing it, so here are some basic tips on how they like to be kept:

Medium To Low Light Requirements For Calathea

A Calathea doesn’t like direct sunlight as it can become scorched or lose its colour. Instead keep it in a bright light that isn’t directly exposed to the sun. If you notice signs to indicate that your Calathea is receiving too much light then try moving it to a different spot in the house or even just a bit further away from the window.

Calatheas Like It Humid

Calatheas are used to tropical climates and won’t do well in a dry household. It might be worth your time investing in a humidifier to help increase the moisture in your home. If you don’t want to do that then you can also try leaving glasses of water around your plants so that the moisture will evaporate into the air. Or you could also try using a mister.

If your plant isn’t getting enough moisture in the air your may notice the leaves developing crispy tips which no one wants on their plant.

Calatheas Aren’t Drought Tolerant

Some plants do better when their soil is left to dry out. The Calathea is not one of these plants, they like to be moist and don’t react well when they are missed out on a session of watering.

This doesn’t mean they need to be soaked through but make sure the soil is watered thoroughly and the plant doesn’t become too dry or you will see the affects of this pretty quickly.

Check the moisture of your soil often and if the top section of the soil feels dry then give it a water. Don’t wait for the soil to dry out completely or you run the risk of damaging your plant.

Calatheas Don’t Like To Be Cold

A final point to make is that Calatheas don’t like to be cold. They grow naturaly in quite warm conditions so it’s not a good idea to leave these plants in a cold environment or near a drought.

Try to keep your home warm and if you leave your plants for the holidays see if you can leave your heating system on a heater to avoid your home becoming too cold for these plants.

You might also want to think about moving them away from windows and doors where they might be in a drought.

This might sound like a lot but if you follow these points a Calathea is relatively easy to grow, and even propagate.

If you’d like to learn more about Calathea care then why not check out our article on how do you prune Calathea?

Calathea can be fussy plants and you might find that due to wear and tear or slightly bad conditions you need to prune your plant so that it can focus it’s attentions on healthy leaves.

If you do have leaves that seem to be dying or not doing so well but the plant itself seems fine then don’t worry. Your Calathea isn’t necessarily dying, you may just need to cut back on some of the dead leaves to stimulate growth with the healthy leaves.

There are different ways you can approach this depending on what you want to achieve with your plant.

Removing Leaves Completely

If you have some leaves that are in quite a bad condition then instead of trying to save most of the leaf or even ignoring the issue, you may be better off cutting the whole leaf off so that the plant can focus on growing new healthy leaves.

Don’t worry if this is the case, it shouldn’t damage your plant and it will also make the plant appear healthier in general. Nothing is worse than looking at a plant with a load of dead leaves.

Simply cut the leaf with a sharp knife or a pair of scissors near the steam and discard the damaged leaf. Then your plant should turn its efforts to promoting growth in new leaves instead of trying to save dying leaves.

Trimming Crispy Tips

If the problem is quite small then you might not have to remove entire leaves and instead just give your leaf a bit of a trim.

If your leaves are still intact but they’ve developed slight crisping on the tips then you can simply trim the tips rather than removing the leaf.

Get a pair of sharp scissors and carefully cut away the brown areas of the leaf leaving the majority of the foliage still intact.

Not only will you be helping the plant but you’ll also be making your Calathea more attractive again because let’s face it, no one likes looking at crispy tips.

Propagating Calathea

Propagating is a bit different to pruning but if the reason you’re wanting to cut back your plant is because it’s getting too big rather than because leaves are dying then instead of throwing away leaves, why not make your one plant into two plants?

Propagation is a great solution for a plant that is getting too big, and if you don’t want another plant, you can always just give it away.

Calathea propagation works best by root separation. So instead of removing a leaf and sticking it in water you’re going to be getting your hands dirty down in the soil.

Take your Calathea out of the pot and gently work away the soil until you can see the roots. As the soil breaks away you should start to see divisions in the plant and find shoots that can be separated from the rest of the plant.

Work at the roots gently so as not to break them and after a while you should be able to pull away a section of the plant. Once you’ve done that, place your new plant in it’s own plant pot, fill it with soil and you’re good to go. They might be fussy plants but Calathea are easy to grow if you take the time to check out their requirements.