I’ve had this plant for 5 years come August, and never knew it even could bloom. I’m a proud plant granddaddy!
Pictures below – not mine, and this is not my blog, but it looks about like this. And by the way, I realize that for any serious plant person, crotons are probably the ultimate boring mall plant, but for someone like me who has whatever thumb color is the opposite of green, it’s very nice to care for a pretty plant that doesn’t require much fuss. It seems to absolutely love artificial light, and back when I went to the office it lived under my fluorescent desk lamp. Now it has its own full-spectrum type of light shining on it at home, and seems to be thriving better than ever.
Congrats! Reminds me of the night my night-blooming cereus bloomed. It was a once-in-a-season bloom, with an overpowering fragrance. I got some great photos of it.
Cool! I’ve seen many a croton, but never saw one bloom before.
I grew coleus amboinicus in Jakarta - apparently it doesn’t like to flower in continuously hot environments and while the plant is common in SE Asia, seeing it flower is rare. I remember finding someone’s blog post exulting that the’d gotten their plant to flower, but mine never did.
Now I’m in Hawai’i and it’s much cooler. I was very excited the first time I saw the amboinicus flower but now it’s no big deal as it flowers easily here.
I didn’t know jade plants flowered either, but mine did last winter. Guess the conditions were right for it to do that; the flowers were small, but they were definitely there.
Blooms aside (I don’t recall ever seeing them), am I the only one surprised to learn that crotons will grow indoors? They are popular as hedges in South Texas, and are grown in full sun. That’s a very adaptable plant.
Hedges in South Texas? Wow, that’s surprising to me; outside of indoor landscaping I think of them as a tropical. Perhaps the Texas version is a hardier species. But I know approximately nothing. Here’s some pretty pictures and info (Wiki does say this one is a tropical.)
This is my second Codiaeum variegatum. The first lived for years under a desk lamp in my office in Chicago; when I left town its new adoptive parent promptly killed it by setting it on a porch in late spring. The current plant has only ever had strong artificial light (as in, shining right on it from just several inches away). When I brought it home in March 2020, I put it outside in cool, bright sunlight for just a few hours, and about killed it with sunburn; it lost several leaves. Perhaps it’s a delicate weakling, having been babied its whole life.
A large part of Texas almost never gets a freeze. Admittedly, the only area where I’ve seen lots of croton is in the Valley, but here’s an article about growing them in San Antonio.
Some of my neighbors (near Galveston Bay) grow croton in attractive clumps. Until the Great Freeze of '21®, we hadn’t had a hard freeze since 1989.
I actually meant the opposite issue – very hot and punishing sun. But also imagined San Antonio as a desert climate, and it’s not at all, is it?
They can be grown indoors, but tend to languish and eventually die. Crotons need high humidity and strong light to flourish indoors.
Last fall, our local Lowe’s (in zone 6b Kentucky) was offering large potted crotons “for fall planting”. I wonder how many people planted them outdoors and were disappointed when they didn’t come back the following spring.