Caladium Cherry Tart™ is a tender perennial (Zones 10-12), grown for its dramatic, long-lasting foliage that adds color and texture to the garden, summer into fall. A lance leaved variety, commonly called angel wings, Cherry Tart is dense with broadly cordate leaves on slender, upright stalks. The dazzling bright red leaves have an undulating, broad green margin.
Caladium Cherry Tart has a compact mounding habit. Shown to best effect when grouped or massed, caladiums add beautiful color and texture to beds, borders, hanging baskets, and containers. They are also an excellent option for underplanting, and the bulbs can be forced and grown indoors as a houseplant.
Extremely easy to grow and low maintenance, caladiums are tropical plants that thrive in warm temperatures with high humidity. They grow best in shady to dappled sun locations with fertile, organically rich, consistently moist, well-draining soil, having an acidic pH but tolerate a wide range of soils. Caladiums require little maintenance but benefit from monthly fertilization. Cherry Tart is quite sun tolerant, thriving in full sun, especially in northern climates.
Cherry Tart was released in April 2011 by the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. In replicated field and greenhouse trials, tuber yield and pot plant quality were comparable or superior to 'Florida Red Ruffles' and 'Florida Sweetheart', currently the most popular red lance-leaved commercial variety and the most popular lance-leaved variety, respectively.
