Caladium can be bought at stores in early spring, or online directly from the growers, which is my preferred way of obtaining them. The growers usually sell larger tuber than what is available in stores, and since they are shipped fresh, the tubers are usually more plumb with clearly visible growing eyes. This year, however, supply may be short due to the hurricanes in Florida late last year.
Producing more leaves
Irrespective where you buy the tubers, you can create much nicer plants by a process called de-eying. De-eying involves scooping out the dominant growing point (eye) which will cause the surrounding dormant eyes to elongate and grow. This will produce a plant with more leaves. Lets take a look at why this happens.
You may remember from our previous article Cutting and Pinching, part1 that dominant growing point will exert apical dominance over nearby surrounding buds suppressing them from growing. This is caused by a high concentration of the natural plant hormone called auxin in the primary growing point. This hormone will physically suppress the nearby growing points from developing. More buds are created by the plant as backup in case of damage to the main growing point (the terminal bud) but the auxiliary buds are not allowed to develop.
Behind the Scenes
Once the primary growing point is removed, the high auxin supply is cut off and the hormonal balance shifts to a high concentration of another natural growth hormone called cytokines. This will prompts all the nearby buds to start growing and developing into leaves.
This is a natural response aimed at protecting the caladium against damage by wind, animals or even a careless gardener (such as me!!). As long as the main growing point is intact, the caladium plant suppresses the other growing points which allow room for the terminal bud to develop into a leaf without having to worry about competition from other leaves. The reason is probably that as long as no damage is done to the plant, the development of one leaf is all that is needed to support the plant. Should the main growing point be damaged, several auxiliary buds will be prompted to grow by the changed hormone balance. Since the plant can only survive if has a leaf, in order to convert the sun's energy into food (i.e. photosynthesize), all efforts will be changed to concentrate on a new purpose: to grow many new leaves in the hope that at least one will survive.
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