{"id":284,"date":"2011-12-19T04:56:22","date_gmt":"2011-12-19T12:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=284"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:32:34","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:32:34","slug":"glamorous-croton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/glamorous-croton\/","title":{"rendered":"Glamorous Croton"},"content":{"rendered":"

GLAMOROUS CROTON\\
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\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I have never had much use for those garden pundits who say flowers are overrated and that true horticultural sophisticates eschew blossoms in favor of the many splendors of foliage.\u00a0 I love flowers and refuse to apologize for it.\u00a0 Yes, they are ephemeral, but so are brownies, butterflies and lots of other good things.\u00a0 Even the most distinctive leaves will rarely make my heart sing the way roses do.\u00a0 Fortunately, those of us who are flower fanatics can find common ground with the foliage fiends by using croton in our indoor and outdoor landscapes.\u00a0 The foliage is so riotously colored that the leaves might as well be flowers.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Even if your local nursery or garden center never labels the crotons, they probably carry them.\u00a0 At this time of the year, the plants may be towards the back of the display areas, displaced by thousands of blooming specimens.\u00a0 They are, however, unmistakable–large-leafed foliage plants that can grow to six feet tall, but usually range from one to three feet tall in stores.\u00a0 Depending on the variety, the heavily ribbed, elongated leaves shine in combinations of red, green, purple-bronze, yellow and white.\u00a0 Most are downright gaudy.\u00a0 If you buy a croton now, it will coordinate perfectly with all the holiday divas like poinsettia, amaryllis and holly.\u00a0 Later on, when the flowers have come and gone, the croton will soldier on, bringing color to even the dullest grouping of spider plants, schefflera and ficus.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Given the colorful foliage and small, insignificant flowers, it isn’t surprising to learn that crotons are related to poinsettias. \u00a0Both belong to the large Euphorbia family and feature stems that contain a characteristic thick, milky sap.\u00a0 If you have children or pets, put your croton out of reach.\u00a0 The sap that is irritating to skin and dangerous to ingest.\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As with much botanical nomenclature, the name “croton”\u009d creates confusion.\u00a0 Within the Euphorbia family, there is a genus called “Croton,”\u009d consisting of over 700 species of perennials, trees and shrubs.\u00a0 None of those 700 species are as important ornamentally as Codiaeum variegatum var. pictum, sold universally as “croton.”\u009d\u00a0 Fortunately the average person does not hobnob with botanists and can safely say “croton”\u009d instead of “Codiaeum.”\u009d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Crotons came originally from the Malay Peninsula, South India and Sri Lanka.\u00a0 The name was bestowed by the great taxonomist Linnaeus in the eighteenth century.\u00a0 Since making their way to Europe and the New World, the plants have been bred to create ever more colorful leaves.\u00a0 One popular variety, that resembles the anonymous specimens I have seen most often in retail establishments, is ‘Petra’, with bright green leaves ribbed in yellow and red.\u00a0 It is hard to find a wider selection, but I suspect gardeners who live in frost free zones may have more luck in local garden centers and nurseries.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In parts of Florida and California, crotons have long been popular as hedge and specimen plants and were widely used for commercial installations, including those for gas stations, motels and shopping areas, in the middle of the twentieth century.\u00a0 The fact that there are variegatum cultivars named after both Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt attests to the species’ popularity in the nineteen thirties and forties.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For those of us in cold winter climates, crotons are congenial houseplants, preferring \u00a0fertile soil and bright, indirect sunlight.\u00a0 Southeast or southwest-facing windows provide the light exposure most conducive to developing and sustaining good leaf color.\u00a0 Protect the plants from drafts and mist regularly if the indoor air is dry.\u00a0 When warm weather rolls around, crotons can go outside, but should be protected from direct summer sun exposure. \u00a0As night temperatures dip into the fifties in the fall, return the plants to their indoor locations.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Crotons make good holiday gifts for discerning plant lovers who have the space to accommodate larger potted specimens.\u00a0 Pick one up at a local merchandiser or order one of several available varieties from Glasshouse Works, 10 Church Street, P.O. Box 97, Stewart, OH 45778, (740) 662-2142, www.glasshouseworks.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GLAMOROUS CROTON\\ \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I have never had much use for those garden pundits who say flowers are overrated and that true horticultural sophisticates eschew blossoms in favor of the many splendors of foliage.\u00a0 I love flowers and refuse to apologize for it.\u00a0 Yes, they are ephemeral, but so are brownies, butterflies and lots of other … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-winter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1507,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions\/1507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}