Anthuriums are known for being finicky about their growing conditions. And one of the most important factors in keeping them healthy and beautiful is location. The right amount of sunlight is crucial to your Anthurium’s health, which means it’s crucial to choose the right spot in your house to place it. But how much light do Anthuriums really need?
To thrive, Anthuriums need lots of light. But beware! Too much can scorch their leaves. An east-facing window is best as the plant will get rays in the early morning hours but be shielded from the heat of the day. With southern or western exposure, keep Anthuriums well away from windows, or filter the light through sheer curtains or blinds.
[Note: the advice above assumes you’re in the Northern Hemisphere. Any of our readers south of the equator will need to reverse the instructions about northern and southern light exposure.]
If your Anthurium isn’t producing many blooms or seems to be struggling to grow, it may not be getting enough light. These plants might be able to survive in dim lighting, but they won’t be at their best. Consider moving your Anthurium to a brighter location, or supplementing with LED grow lights if your home doesn’t have a spot that meets the plant’s needs.
Anthurium Light Requirements
One of the reasons Anthuriums can be tough for inexperienced growers is that although they can’t tolerate full sun, they’re not true low-light plants like ferns or Philodendrons. They need a lot of illumination to thrive, but they’re particular about how they get it. Trying to find exactly the right balance of sun and shade can be frustrating.
Anthuriums grow in the shade of thick jungle canopies. Some growers, hearing that, conclude that they’re “shade plants” that should be kept in dim light. This confusion is understandable, especially if you don’t have experience growing plants both indoors and outdoors. Here’s the thing: unless you have a hyper-modern house full of light and floor-to-ceiling windows, even a fairly shady spot outside receives more light than a north-facing room in your home.
This is especially true in the equatorial rainforests where Anthuriums evolved. Most of the light that reaches them in their lush home territory is filtered through leaves or reflected off of tree trunks. But the sun still shines through that protective layer for hours and hours every day of the year.
So even though Flamingo Flowers don’t like to be right in the glare of the sun, they do like to soak up lots of photons over the course of the day. Experts usually describe the right conditions for Anthuriums as “bright, indirect light.” Let’s look a little closer at what that means.
Direct vs. Indirect Sunlight
Direct sunlight means that the sun is shining right onto the plant, with nothing interrupting or absorbing any of the energy on its way to the leaf. Indirect sunlight means that those rays are bouncing off other surfaces, or passing through partially opaque barriers like thin fabric before they hit your Anthurium.
To tell whether one particular spot is receiving direct or indirect light, set something down there while the sun is shining brightly and turn off any artificial lights. If the object casts a dark, sharply defined shadow, the light is direct. If the shadow is a little more muted and fuzzy, the light is indirect.
If you want to get more technical, you can use an illuminance meter, a handy device that will give you a pretty precise reading on the intensity of whatever light is hitting its sensor. Foot-candles are a common metric – the term literally refers to the intensity of one candle from a foot away. A reading between 1,000-2,000 foot-candles indicates bright but indirect light.
Choosing the Right Location For Your Anthurium
When a houseplant’s care instructions say that it needs indirect light, it’s more of a general guide than a hard and fast rule. Your Anthurium isn’t a vampire; it won’t burst into flame if a stray sunbeam strikes it directly. What it can’t tolerate is the sustained, intense heat of sitting in sunlight during the brightest parts of the day.
Factors like the time of year or the ambient temperature and humidity affect how much sunlight Anthuriums can handle. As we hinted at above, the time of day matters too: the sun is gentler in the early morning and late evening, since the horizon is blocking some of its light.
You might need to experiment a bit to figure out exactly where your plant will be happiest. However, there are a few basic tips that should help you identify a good location.
Direction of Exposure
Here in the Northern Hemisphere, the sun rises to the east of us, moves through the southern skies, and sets in the west. So over the course of an entire day, southern windows admit more direct light than those facing any other direction.
Placing an Anthurium right in front of an unshaded southern window is not recommended unless you want to fry your plant. It will be bathed in the harshest light your home ever gets, the sun streaming directly into the room through most of the daylight hours.
On the other hand, a room with southern exposure can be great for Anthuriums if it’s large enough that you can set the plant 4-6 feet away from any windows. The space will be bathed in light for much of the day, but your Flamingo Flower won’t be right in the line of fire. It should bloom and grow instead of burning and withering.
A west-facing window is a little less bright, with only four to six hours of direct light. However, its maximum intensity arrives in the afternoon, when the air has been heating up since sunrise. This one-two punch of heat and direct light can be almost as devastating to Anthuriums as southern exposure. Keep your plant 3-5 feet away from a window that looks out to the west.
An eastern window is on the opposite schedule. It receives direct light during the coolest part of the day, as the sun rises and moves to the south. Later on, when the air is heating up, only indirect light gets through.
This makes eastern exposure ideal for Anthuriums. They’ll get a good strong dose of light in the morning when the lower temperatures can help them withstand it, but they’ll be shielded from the blazing light that arrives later in the day.
Rooms with only north-facing windows never look directly out on the sun. They’ll only receive indirect light – but usually not enough to let your Anthurium live its best life. This obviously varies based on location and season. Some northerly rooms might be okay for Anthuriums, particularly during the summer months.
Whatever location you choose, try to avoid exposing Anthuriums to more than 3-4 hours of direct light per day.
Filtering Light for Your Anthurium
Another way to protect Anthuriums from direct light is by screening some of it out. A room with big south-facing windows can still be an excellent habitat for your tropical beauties if you hang some sheer curtains to scatter the sunbeams as they enter. This produces a bright but diffuse light closer to what Anthuriums would receive in the upper reaches of the rainforest.
There are a variety of lightweight materials that will work for this purpose, including:
- Polyester
- Linen
- Chiffon
- Lace
- Light cotton
- Rice paper
Choosing a loose weave that still admits a fair amount of light is more important than the specific material. Venetian blinds are another good option; you can set them partly but not fully open so that most of the sun will reflect off the bottoms of the slats on its way into the room.
Heat Levels and Light Exposure
Dehydration is responsible for most of the damage that direct sun causes Anthuriums. Plants that receive too much sunlight compensate by releasing more water from their leaves – a process called transpiration – but eventually, they’ll begin to run out. When that happens, the cells shrivel and the leaves turn yellow and wither. Soon they’ll begin to die, resulting in crispy, lifeless brown spots.
An Anthurium in a cooler environment will be able to withstand a bit more sunlight. Spots next to heating vents are particularly dangerous because the air they release is often dry as well as hot. Ambient temperatures above 90 degrees are too hot for Anthuriums under any circumstances, but if the plant receives a lot of sunlight, that number could be even lower.
You’ll also want to choose a room with a decent amount of air circulation, so that the atmosphere doesn’t get hot and stuffy.
Humidity Levels and Light Exposure
The ideal humidity for an Anthurium is around 70 to 80 percent. If you’re not sure how the levels in your home stack up, you can easily monitor them with an inexpensive hygrometer. Most homes aren’t naturally humid enough to really satisfy a Flamingo Flower, so growers usually pamper their plants with a little extra moisture.
The easiest way to do this is with a humidifier. Depending on your needs, you can get a cheap, simple, and compact one to place right next to your plant, or a beefier machine capable of regulating the humidity of the entire room. Take a look at our article on houseplant humidifiers if you need suggestions.
Note that this 70-80 percent humidity range is not ideal for your entire home as high levels of humidity harbor mold and other fungi. When we talk about that high level of humidity, we’re referring to the humidity level in the area surrounding the tropical plant, not every inch of your apartment.
Other Anthurium owners like to mist their plants frequently with a spray bottle. This is a little less exact than adding a humidfier, but you’ll get a feel for how often you need to spritz to keep your plant happy over time. Unless your home is exceptionally humid, we’d recommend at least once every three days. Make sure to use a fine mist setting and let the foliage dry completely before spraying again.
A pebble tray is another option that’s both cheap and low-effort. You can make one by filling a flat-bottomed tray with gravel, marbles, or pebbles and placing some water in the base. Your Anthurium’s pot sits on top of the pebbles to keep the roots above the waterline (so they don’t rot), while the evaporation from the tray makes the air around it a little moister.
The emphasis here is on “a little more,” by the way – pebble trays aren’t very powerful. They can give your Anthurium a small humidity boost, but they’re most useful as a supplement for other methods.
Is My Anthurium Getting Too Much Sun?
Sun damage in Anthurium will cause the foliage to fade to a pale yellow color, often with patches of brown and white dead tissue. If there are blooms, they may take on a bleached and faded appearance. This problem is often referred to as sun scorch or leaf scorch.
Note that yellowing and browning leaves are symptoms of dehydration, which can be caused by other factors besides sunlight. Overwatering, underwatering, and fertilizer burn are other especially common culprits – see our article on discoloration in Anthurium leaves for more.
You can usually bet that too much sun is the issue if the burned areas appear to be concentrated on the uppermost leaves, or on the side of the plant that’s facing the nearest window. The browning from sun scorch is also less likely to be limited to leaf tips – it may appear in large swathes all over the surface of the foliage.
And, of course, you should consider your plant’s overall growing environment. For instance, if you aren’t keeping it by a window and you’re watering it every week, an overwatering issue is more likely than an excess of sun.
Rescuing a Sun-Damaged Anthurium
Luckily, your Anthurium should recover once you move it into a shadier spot. Don’t keep it in the dark, but keep it out of any direct light to minimize the stress for the next few weeks.
It’s not necessary to trim away the affected leaves unless they’re completely dead. The undamaged portions can still take in energy to help the plant grow new, healthy foliage. However, you may want to prune away any spathes (the technical term for an Anthurium’s colorful blooms). They’re more of a drain on the plant’s resources than ordinary leaves.
If some leaves have been completely lost to sunburn, ease back on watering and fertilizing while the plant is recovering.
Is My Anthurium Getting Too Little Sun?
The signs of light deficiency are more subtle than the marks of sun scorch. Mostly, you’ll notice that nothing is happening: your Anthurium isn’t blooming or producing new growth. It’s not dying, but it’s not exactly living it up, either.
Another tell-tale sign is that when flowers do emerge, the spathes are pale green rather than the vibrant red to which you’re accustomed.
Correcting Lack of Sunlight in Anthuriums
The easy fix here is to move your plant into a location with more light. If you can scooch it a bit closer to the window, or move it from a north-facing room to an east-facing one, you may be all set. Make the adjustment gradually so that you don’t shock your Anthurium; start by giving it an extra hour or so of direct light in the morning, and increase the amount a little every day.
However, if the plant is already in the brightest spot available, it may be time to give Mother Nature a little artificial help. Adding a grow light or two above your Anthurium can bring back its joie de vivre.
But Can’t Artificial Lights Burn Your Anthurium Too?
Technically, yes, though a lot depends on the type and strength of bulb you use. We typically recommend LED lights. These energy-efficient bulbs give off so little heat that you can place them quite close to your Anthurium with no ill effects.
Our go-to suggestion is the Sansi 15W LED bulb. It’s inexpensive, dependable, and easy to install. For best results, you’ll generally want to set it up a little over a foot away from your Anthurium – though as with everything when it comes to lighting your plants, experimentation is the best way to find the right setup for your home and your plants.
If your Anthurium is getting a few hours of direct sun but still needs a little extra juice, 6-7 hours per day under the grow lights should be enough. If it’s in a dim, north-facing room, you’ll want to give it at least 12 hours of exposure to the LEDs. You can set the lighting schedule using a simple lamp timer.
We offer more in-depth info on grow lights for houseplants here.
Final Thoughts
Lighting your Anthurium correctly is really about balancing several factors – direction, timing, heat, and humidity all play a role. You’ll probably have to play around a bit to find the sweet spot for your plant. Whenever you’re shifting your Anthurium’s light levels, do it gradually so that the plant has time to adjust. With a little practice, you’ll find the spot that lets your Anthurium shine.