This is a photo of my research greenhouse. It mainly contains ornamental tropical aroids. Aroid is a common name for the several genera of plants that are in the plant family Araceae. Several aroids are shade-loving plants and are grown for use indoors as decorative ornamentals.

I work on breeding aroids for new cultivars as well as studying ways to make them flower and produce hybrids. The photo today shows several different Anthuriums that are used in breeding. From a cross pollination it takes about 2 years to produce plants large enough to evaluate. Anthurium ‘Red Hot’ (shown in an earlier blog) is one hybrid that came from this program. It grows into a nice bushy plant and flowers continuously - some people have had them flowering for 5 years on their patio. ‘Red Hot’ does not like temperatures below 50 degrees and will die if exposed to freezing temps. We move our plants indoors for a few days during Florida’s cold blasts in the winter.

Cold temperatures do not sit well with me either. However, the heat the last few days here make those minus 30 degree temperatures in Minnesota seem not so bad. At least the aroids are happy.