Day 5: Today's Pick — Anthurium Clarinervium, the Houseplant That Gets Better As It Ages

My desk plant is an Anthurium clarinervium that my partner gave me for our second anniversary. It is now four years old. Each year, it has produced exactly two new leaves. Each new leaf has been larger and more dramatic than the last.

I look at it more than I look at most paintings.

What it is

Anthurium clarinervium is a Mexican aroid with deep-green velvety leaves shaped like elongated hearts. The leaves are crisscrossed with bone-white veins in a pattern that looks like a botanical illustration somebody drew with a Rapidograph. In good light, the velvet catches a soft sheen. In bright indirect light, it almost glows.

How to actually keep it alive

The published-on-the-internet care instructions for this plant are terrifying ("85% humidity, distilled water only"). Mine sits on a desk in a regular Brooklyn apartment with a humidifier nearby in winter. I water it when the top inch is dry, which works out to once every 9–11 days. I fertilize once a month in spring and summer. I have never repotted it. It is fine.

The trick that mattered most: a chunky, well-draining mix. I use orchid bark + perlite + a small amount of regular potting mix. Roots love air. Roots that sit in moisture rot.

What surprised me

How fast the new leaves arrive. People will tell you anthuriums are slow growers. They are, in the sense that you might get two leaves a year. But each leaf goes from "tiny pink curl" to "fully unfurled mature leaf" in about four weeks. You can watch it.

What it costs

$30 for a 4-inch starter from a specialist nursery. Less if you find one at a plant swap. Don't pay $80; the price has come down a lot since 2022.

The unmarketed virtue

It will be more interesting in five years than it is today. Most decor plants peak six months after purchase and then mostly maintain. The clarinervium gets bigger leaves, more prominent veining, a more architectural shape. The plant rewards the kind of patience that other plants do not.

A small warning

Don't brush the leaves. The velvet is fragile. A brushed leaf will bruise and the bruise will not heal. Keep it where the cat can't reach. If you must touch it, touch the petiole (the leaf stem), not the leaf itself.

Tomorrow: a vintage-style Italian moka pot that I am, against my better judgment, very tender about.