My Army of Ladies

I tried something different in my pest control methods in the greenhouse the other day. I have tried to stay away from pesticides as I’m sure many others do as well. Usually I use neem oil for most of my problems with great results. This time when I noticed a developing aphid infestation I thought I would try something else just for curiosities sake if for nothing else. It’s pretty well known that ladybugs favorite treat are aphids so I bought from an eBay seller 2000 of the little beetles. They arrived in a tuperware packed full of the friendly little bugs which I promptly released in the greenhouse and yard. They quickly went to work and I have to say I’m impressed. They cleaned up every green little bugger in record time. I guess they are happy in their new environment because I caught a couple in the act if you know what I mean. So essentially if all goes well I could have my own little army of helpers indefinitely. Give it a try sometime if you haven’t already it’s fun to watch their antics even if they didn’t do anything productive. Enjoy!

The Great Tuber Harvest of 2011

As of today I am still unpotting Amorphs and the like that are gradually going dormant. I would venture to say about 75% of the collection is now stored in paper bags while the remaining species are still growing in the greenhouse. I even have some species putting out new leaves! That is a first for me to have plants this late in the season still leafing out. Usually by this time things are starting to look ragged and the plant is showing its imminent dormancy with yellowing leaf tips and drying petioles. However in my operculatus in particular there are two new spikes forming and fresh new leaves pushing out. Amorphophallus sylvaticus just came out of dormancy and is in full leaf. An Amorphophallus albispathus clone has gone crazy all season and has apparently gotten a second wind as it also is putting out two new spikes. I don’t tend to argue with them and allow them to grow as big as they want. The more leaves they grow the bigger the tuber harvest will be whenever it comes. I managed to take a group photo of the collection so far sitting nice and dry waiting for early spring.

Group photo of most of the dormant collection. It was a pretty good year overall.

I store the smaller tubers in little craft boxes to keep them organized.

Is it just me or do I have a lot off potting ahead of me? I always end up with more plants than the year previous, partly from tubers dividing and offsetting and partly because of fall sales on eBay. Ebay, my nemesis, is also my best tool for finding plant material you are unlikely to find anywhere else.

A group of newly acquired tubers from well know collector Alan Galloway.

Fellow collectors and enthusiasts often sell their extra material on eBay, mostly I presume to pay for the addiction that I share with them. In some cases you can find outstanding steals and deals, other times you would be shocked for what a single tuber can bring. It takes patience or deep pockets or both to add to your collection as there are hundreds of species and new ones being discovered fairly often. Also be cautious as to what and from whom you buy, there are lots of people that sell tubers on eBay. Most people are well meaning and sell correctly identified plants. There are the few that through ignorance or deliberate deception sell common species under a rare moniker. I guess the old sayings hold true, ” You get what you pay for.” and “If it seems too good to be true it probably is.”. Enjoy!

Greenhouse is Now Green!

I saw a question from an Amorphophallus enthusiast on the Aroid forum about their out of season growing plant. Apparently it only came out dormancy a month ago and will be cut short in its growing if left outside for the cooling nights. This is a problem that all people who grow tuberous aroids will face. If your plant waits until late in the season to start growing just embrace it and make it a houseplant for the winter. Bring it inside place it in a window and voila an instant indoor amorph. The opposite happens more often with plants refusing to die down for the winter and I’m not one to fight them. If they want to go on a marathon growing season and put on extra weight who am I to argue. I just bring them into the greenhouse and let them do their thing. I have had some species stay in leaf until March! This year about half of the collection is still growing which is a little more than usual so my brand new empty greenhouse has become a tightly packed full greenhouse. I expect a handful a week to start going dormant until about January then only the really stubborn ones will persist, namely ochroleucus and haematospadix. I did a little more construction inside since the last time I shared photos with you. On the left side I build a rack to hold my hanging baskets of orchids and right in front of that I built a mounting area for the thermostats and electrical strip as I get them set up. Just remember dont fret a green growing amorph its just happy even if a little confused. Enjoy!

Orchid Rack

The remaining amorphs that show no signs of dormancy.

The Beginning of the End

It is the beginning of the end of the season for amorphs that is. I have begun to harvest the tubers that are going dormant. About half of my collection has succumbed to its fall slumber. The other half I have moved into the greenhouse to allow them to grow as long as possible thus producing as fat of tubers as possible. Unless the species is evergreen, of which there are a few, there will be no way to eliminate dormancy. I will simply try to delay it. This year was a trying one for both myself any my plants as I moved during the middle of the summer. Its always tricky learning the light zones in your yard and what to expect as far as the weather is concerned. I learned we get very strong summer storms that blow from the north, hence some damage from that. I learned that we have a ton of crickets and grasshoppers here, hence some damage from them. I also learned that much like Texas the summer heat comes on strong, hence some damage in the form of leaf burn. All and all the new location provided a mixed back of results for my collection. For it is not how the plant looks after the summer has passed it is how the underground tuber has grown, or shrunk, that is the true measure of success. I had some dismal results as in the case of napalensis, muelleri and dunnii. All of which are very sensitive to heat. There also was some awesome growth for bulbifer, all of my konjac cultivars and most spectacularly tenuistylis. The latter really impressed me with an enormous tuber, unfortunately some mechanical damage cut its leaf and knocked it into dormancy. Who knows how big it would have gotten if it had grown for another month or so. I switched to tall pots this year as my elongate tubers were getting bigger and needed the extra room to grow down. I thought the ones I had selected were a little overkill at 16 inches tall, but seeing the growth on this guy I’m glad I went big.

The smaller tuber in the photo was approximately the same size as the larger one was last year. Im hoping for a bloom next year.

Im hoping for big things from my koratensis, ankarana and haematospadix which are all still growing and are my favorites. There will be many more to share with you as the rest of the collection goes dormant. I hope your summer was a success and my all your tubers be fruitful. Enjoy!

Liftoff!

I love it when a plan comes together and in this instance I am referring to my Amorphophallus seeds. Growing anything from seed is not my favorite aspect of gardening. I have had great results as with my Hippeastrums and I have had miserable results as with my South African bulbs. Growing aroids from seed is an entirely new thing to me though. I got a little taste of it a while back with some gifted Philodendron seeds, which are doing well. That gave me a little confidence for my Amorph seeds. Now approximately a few weeks since I harvested my seed head I have germination! The first of Im sure many seeds is breaking the surface with its tiny little first leaf. Even more exciting is a compot of hybrid amorphs seed from a friend. This is a very exciting cross involving Amorphophallus lewallei X impressus. Amorphs are not east to cross like daylilys or Hippeastrum, they have many different genome types that result in incompatible pairs. So when a hybrid amorph comes along, especially one involving two of your favorite species, you gladly accept the gift. Thanks friend! In any case I hope you don’t let seeds be a daunting endeavor and give them a try. Just remember when it comes to aroid seeds, the fresher the better. Don’t waste your time with old seed as they must be fresh to be viable. Good luck and enjoy!

Its a baby amorph!

I’m back and I have seeds!

Amorphophallus konjac seeds to be exact. Remember a few months ago when I attempted to pollinate an inflorescence I had? Well it worked and for the last few months the berries have been ripening to a nice plump orange pod. Yesterday I decided it was time to harvest them and plant them in an attempt to grow my first Amorphophallus from seed. I gleaned what I could from the limited information floating around the internet and made up the rest. Admittedly I am not the best at growing anything from seed. Don’t get me wrong I can do it and have had some good success with Hippeastrum seeds especially. However most times I end up missing a watering and the seedlings dry out in one day and all is lost. So I will attempt to be extra diligent with these little ones as I am super excited to see if I got any genetic variations from my cross. Ultimately I would love something different, something either unique in appearance or growth patterns. One of my personal goals is to create an amorphophallus hybrid or clone that is much cold hardier. They are such great plants for the perennial border that I would like more people to be able to try them without having to dig them up each fall. Anyways I snapped a few photos during the tedious task of cleaning the seeds and the subsequent sowing last night. I apologize for the quality as the best camera I had at my disposal was my iphone camera. In any case the point becomes clear.

The berries had a uniform orange appearance all the way down so I figured it was time to harvest. They had ripened from the top down. If you look carefully at the shriveled spadix you can see a little friend that came to help.

I plucked the berries off the plant wearing gloves because I have heard that the juices can be irritating to the skin. I know that the tubers have oxalic acid in them and I have handled cut open tubers bare handed before with no effect but I was hesitant nonetheless. Besides they had a very vibrant orange dye to them that I didn’t feel like wearing for the next few days.

Close-up of the fruit

I put all the picked berries into a pot, it was quite a haul.

From there I squeezed each berry until a seed or two popped out into a bowl of water. I tried to rinse as much pulp from the seeds as I could. Some floated but most sank in the water. I am not sure if it is any indication of viability but I selected some of each to plant just to make sure.

After the messy process of cleaning the berries I planted a large amount of them in a window box with a mix of potting soil, perlite and a little fir bark. I watered well and sat it on the porch. Now keep your fingers crossed that they start to grow. I have heard that they are viable only for a short time and are quick to germinate. Wish me luck. Enjoy!

My First Attempt at Pollinating A Konjac

In the last few days I have been a busy little bee. I had three Amorphophallus Konjac bloom this year including my nightstick clone, which has a nice dark olive colored petiole and penducle. Since it was blooming I thought it might be a nice chance to throw the genetic dice and cross it with a common form that was also blooming. I wont know if it was successful for a while still but I did document the process I undertook so that the general idea could be achieved. Bear in mind that Amorphophallus, as all aroids in my opinion, are very different in their reproductive behavior than say a Hippeastrum. Amorphophallus are not able to be self pollinated and require pollen from another source. In addition pollen has a short life span and its viability decreases rapidly. The reason for Amorphophalllus inability to self pollinate lies in the fact that the female flowers are no longer receptive when the male flowers start to shed pollen, and thus ensures that genetic variability ensues. In the future I plan to go into more depth about the anatomy and pollination of the inflorescence. For now though I will run you through a photo journal of my pollination attempt.

Here is the receiving plant. I waited until it was just about to open before starting.

The penducle of the same plant as above. Note the typical konjac pattern.

I started by removing the spathe using a sharp knife and carefully cutting it away from the spadix.

Once the spathe was removed you can clearly see the separate zones of flowers, males above and females below.

A close up of the female flowers.

A photo of the penducle of the nightstick clone, clearly different.

Using a small paintbrush I attempted to collect pollen from the nightstick

The pollen which you can see on the tip of the brush was than transferred to the other plant.

I tried to cover as many individual female flowers as I could but it is hard to remember which ones you already hit and the pollen was brownish colored adding to the difficulty. As I said earlier this was a first attempt and I can only hope the it was successful. I will update this post with results either way. Thanks for looking, enjoy!

Let the Stink Fiesta Begin

Amorphophallus season is almost here! To celebrate the occasion three of my A. Konjacs are about to bloom including my “nightstick” clone. With each passing day the rapidly growing inflorescence get that much closer to releasing their potent stench. I wish that you had smell-o-vision because one can only describe the scent so much. It inst until you experience it for yourself that you truly realize that people are not exaggerating when they say it is one of the most memorable and pungent aromas imaginable. It is reminiscent of road kill on a hot day and pure garbage. In the time you are exposed to it it rapidly erases your olfactory abilities and for some time afterwords you catch wiffs of it as if it is following you. I swore I wasn’t going to let any of them bloom again because the novelty has since wore off and it drains the tuber of energy that could be spent on its leaf, but since my nightstick decided to bloom this year I am going to attempt to get pollen off of it and pollinate one of my regular forms. I wouldn’t say it is a pity that they are so oderific since that is what makes this genus so interesting and apealing to me, but it is a shame in the fact that it is such a beautiful “flower” and more people might grow them if it wasn’t for their less apealing attributes. The spathe is a liver crimson color that is unmatched in any other plant I have seen and the spadix with its statuesque spire creates a very stately image. Overall if you have the fortitude to give amorphophallus a try I highly suggest starting with Konjac. It is the cheapest to acquire and easy to grow. Its results are impressive and creates quite a conversation piece. Ill have more later as the inflorescence develop. Enjoy!

The three tenors if you will growing in a row.

Amorphophallus Konjac “Nightstick” readying its inaugural bloom.

A Pygmy Amorph with a Pygmy Stench to Boot

Alright, so its been a while since I actually posted something about which this blog is named. Today my Amorphophallus pygmaeus decided to finally open its spathe, which signified it being fully in bloom. The inflorescence is smallish, only about 10cm tall, which would seem fitting for an amorph whos name pretty obviously refers to the pygmies. It has a slight stench, nothing to write home about, but in the small humid greenhouse it is definitely noticeable. This is my first year with this species and I have heard great things about it, so far I am impressed. I am very much looking forward to its leaf as I hear it is arguably the prettiest of them all. As this is my first year growing this one I cant really give you any tips on culture other than what is available on the internet or from experience with other species. I mixed up a very well drained soil with about equal parts potting soil, perlite and expanded shale. We shall see if this little guy likes it, so far he seems happy. Overall I think this is quite an impressive show and I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do. Here are some snapshots of the inflorescence in all its diminutive glory. Enjoy!

A. pygmaeus has a relatively short spathe compared to the long spadix

Here the male flower can be seen, they have not yet started to shed pollen indicating that the female flowers below are still fertile.

This is the best I could do to capture the female flowers without cutting the spathe open. You can see a slight maroon coloring at the bottom of the spathe!

Amorphophallus Koratensis

This has been a busy gardening day with lots of blog posts. This should be my last for today but who knows! I was doing a little more potting this evening and I came upon my Amorphophallus Koratensis, which is one of my favorites. Before I potted it up I noticed something interesting to the tuber. As with every member of this interesting genus the roots are annual and are replaced each time before renewed growth. A. Koratensis is no exception, but what was interesting to me was the layout of the soon to be roots.

If you look at these photos you can see the line of root nubs that wrap around the tuber. What amazed me though was the perfect linear formation to the nubs. One after another each nub follows the preceding like a line of ants. Perfectly without fail the line wraps around the entire thing. To most people that are not obsessed with plants they may not even notice these things, but as for myself it is the details and minutia that hold the most interesting parts of a plant. It is the little things that make a particularly beautiful plant worth admiring. Hopefully you can appreciate things as I do.