Calathea Ornata or Pin-Stripe Calathea – Hydro

Calathea Ornata or Pin-Stripe Calathea – Hydro

Calathea ornata, or the pinstripe houseplant, is a striking member of the Maranta or prayer plant family. Their beautifully veined leaves make a striking statement in your home. Like any Calathea, houseplant care can be tricky and extra effort is needed for them to look their best indoors.

The Calathea Ornata (also called the Calathea Pinstripe or Pinstripe plant) is a beautiful plant with pink stripes on its large green leaves. It’s beautiful, but it can be a fussy plant and difficult to care for at times. We all know someone that has struggled to keep a Calathea healthy, let alone alive. So with this guide, we’ll look at what you can do to keep these amazing, but stubborn, tropical plants healthy.

Calathea ornata likes bright, indirect light. Be careful to avoid too much direct sun; otherwise, the leaves can fade or even burn. This plant has adapted to grow in dimmer, humid environments, so choose a spot that is well lit, but with little to no direct sun.

Watering Calathea Ornata

All Calatheas (not just the Ornata) are humidity lovers. So this is a great plant to have if you’re generally a person who overwaters other plants. The Calathea Ornata can take this amount of water. But there is a catch. When you’re watering this plant, you should make sure to get rid of the excess water. You can do this in two ways:

1. Plant the Calathea Ornata in the plastic nursery pot it came in and put that in the decorative pot.
2. If you have a closed-off pot, tilt the plant sideways and let any excess water escape.

This step is important because while this plant loves to be moist, it doesn’t like to sit in a puddle of water. This will cause root rot and that could kill the plant.

You should water this plant when the soil starts to dry out. This plant doesn’t like to be in completely dry soil, so make sure to water it before it dries out too much. In the summer this means you should water this plant every week or every two weeks, depending on how dry the soil is. In the winter you can water this plant every two to four weeks, again, depending on how dry the soil is.

So to sum up the watering:

1. Water plentiful, this plant loves to have moist soil at all times
2. Let any of the excess water escape, this plant can’t sit in a puddle

Soil for the Calathea Ornata

As I’ve mentioned before, this plant loves to be in moist soil. This means that you should find soil that retains a lot of water. This way it can sit in moist soil for a long time and you won’t have to water this plant as often. If you don’t have any soil that’s designed to retain water, that’s not a problem. You’ll just have to water the plant more often to keep the soil moist.

Because the soil needs to be moist most of the time, be sure to get soil that can breathe when it’s moist. If you get soil that gets very heavy and compact, you might want to choose a different one. This soil won’t let any air go to the roots and this will slowly suffocate the plant. Soil with bigger chunks and/or moss will be a great option for this, it holds water and lets air through.

Light requirements

Calathea plants are tropical plants that grow on the ground under the shade of trees. This is their ideal sunlight exposure, so they should get low to medium sunlight throughout the day in your house. Keep them in a bright room with a thin curtain or some shade and you should be able to keep your plant happy. My Calathea Ornata is close to a big south-facing window and gets medium/indirect sunlight for most of the day. When your Calathea gets exposed to direct sunlight, the sensitive leaves will start to fade and get sunburned.

So in summary keep your Calathea Ornata in a low to medium bright spot where it gets indirect sunlight.

Fertilizing your Calathea Ornata

Houseplants need a regular dose of fertilizer to stay healthy and look their best. The best time to fertilize is when the plant is actively growing, so for most plants that means fertilizing in the spring and summer. Fertilize your Calathea Ornata once every 14 days.

Dilute the fertilizer according to the instructions on the package, then pour it over the soil around the plant. Don’t pour it directly on the leaves, as this can cause them to burn.

When you use a liquid fertilizer, it’s much easier to control the dose of the fertilizer, which helps to prevent over fertilizing your Calathea. Over-fertilizing your Calathea could cause the roots to burn and this will slowly kill the plant. So make sure to follow the instructions that come with your liquid fertilizer.