WHATS LOOKING EXOTIC IN MAY 2014

Chuck that idea on the cutting-room-floor then!!#

Thanks, saved me months of Effort as a prelude to total heartbreak ...

 

It's not a bad plant outdoors, just delicate. Ideal table "ornament" under a parasol.

 

Give me a break! Ain't got time for anything that needs that sort of mollyBlinkingCoddling!

 

I used to grow Gloxinia from seed each year, always flowered well, but not for out doors, for god sake.

 

Just watching last night's Chelsea on the Beeb-Two the Auricula stand (which I walked past yesterday thinking "Anoraks") they said that the Border ones (there are BORDER ones? I never knew that ...) are great for outside and form blooming big clumps that make a massive ball of flowers - of course they didn't then show a "here's one I prepared earlier" so I don't know whether to believe them ... sounds like they would look spectacular - and I reckon a lot less fussy than a Gloxinia ...

 

I have a mate who spent years growing Auriculas, not my kind of thing really, although they do have very interesting flowers.
The border ones, I guess, are the ones that have no farina, think that is the right word, so can go outside without looking rubbish.

 

There are such thing as border Auriculas as we had some that we got from a local nursery but found that after a number of years they started to get less and less and the two fierce winters we had finally killed them off.I think they call the cuttings carrots,which I should have had a go at to try and keep them going as they do tend to get a bit leggy after a time with the flowers on the top of the stems.I even had double ones which again were rather nice,but really to show them off properly I think they do better kept in an Alpine house as opposed to the Victorian theatre style.

I have a couple of books somewhere about and it is amazing how many different colours you can get,even some with stripes and I am sure there are even green flowered and also brown ones

 

Well ... I Googled for Border Auriculas to get to see a picture of the amazing Clump of "17 stems" that I heard of (but they didn't show me, natch!) on the Telly ... SkyPie! Nothing on Google images to even begin to temp me. So that's that then!

Woodland Primulas I rather like the look of - always assumed that I needed some damp, dank acid area though?

 

My first Arisaema - A. costatum



How is the string-thing suppose to work? Does the leaf "hook" that to pull the flower upright as the leaf grows?

 

Nice idea. Sadly though it's decorative rather than functional. Many Arisaemas have this long whip like appendage.

 

Thanks. Its seriously long though, most of it would just be on the deck doing no good at all. I'm doubting the design was "intelligent"

 

Arisaemas and aroids in general are very varied when it comes to flowers and foliage. Which is why I enjoy trying to grow some of them.

 

Growing these for the first time this year


Arisaema consanguineum
Arisaema costatum (earlier post)


Arisaema galeatum


Arisaema griffithii


Arisaema intermedium


Arisaema kiushianum


Arisaema speciosum


Arisaema tortuosum

and I am trying several more from seed

Also trying these which I've not seen before (seen on Google, but not sure what to expect, so-to-speak)



Remusatia hookeriana


Remusatia pumila


Remusatia vivipara

 

p.s. I suspect I need to buy the Arisaema griffithii var. pradhanii variety of A. griffithii, even more dramatic I think?

 

Wow Kristen - you are really into these aroids. I only have three Arisaemas - speciosum, tortuosum and sikokianum. Last year I grew them for their flowers, but this year I have been really impressed by the foliage - exotic and different.

I recently bought a Caladium bicolor - which has really beautiful foliage. Though I am not sure about overwintering it. My plant is very small, but I have been told by my neighbour, an indian lady, that the leaves can get pretty big.

Whilst Googling Remusatia, which I had never heard of, I happened on this site http://araceae.e-monocot.org/taxonomy/term/3523/media there are rather more aroids than I can get my mind round.