With this conditons you realy give a tryout to plant some outddoors.
But probably you should exchange part of the ground. IMHO you can left
out peat and compost. I can't imagine that there's a lot at rocks. ;-)
As Bernhard noted, my Heli-mus' easily survived -5 C as potted plants.
greetings
Peter
D. Christopher Rogers wrote:
Hi, Peter!
This is probably far more
information than you wanted, but I figure I
should tell as much as I can in the hopes that it will help some, and
others
can tell me if I am doing something wrong.
I have my plants as a
very generous gift from a buddy. I live 30 minutes
northwest of Sacramento on the west side of the California Central
Valley at an
altitude of about 20 m (65 ft). The USDA Plant Hardiness Map puts me in
on the
border of Zone 9a and 9b. We sometimes get a maritime influence from
the
Sacramento River Delta to the south west, keeping us from dropping
below 0C
(32F) and covering us with maritime fog. However, cold air coming down
the
valleys in the Interior Coast Ranges to the west will push us down to
–2C (28F).
This year was particularly cold, and we had two weeks with lows between
–5C (22F) and
1C (33F). Normally we have a typical Mediterranean climate, with a hot,
dry
summer and a cool, wet winter, but this year it has been very dry. The
lack of
cloud cover has let us drop in temperature. (Although we finally got
some rain
last night!!!)
I have had the
Helicodiceros muscivorus two years now, and in both years
they started popping up in January. Last year was very wet, and we had
very
little frost at all. The small plants pop up first. The frost did not
seem to
bother them at all. The larger plants began pushing up at the end of
January
(both years). I have them under a very large, very old butterfly bush
(Buddelia
davidii), where they receive morning sun from 9 AM to a little after
12. Immediately
to the west of them is my greenhouse, and they get light filtered
through the
greenhouse until 4 PM. Last year, the large plant produced two flowers
in May,
and I hope to get more flowers this year.
The plants are potted,
and are sitting with (also potted) Arum italicum,
A. dioscoridis dioscoridis, A. cyrenaicum, A. sintenesii, A.
hygrophilum, A.
palestinum, Arisarum simmorrhinum, and Dracunculus vulgaris, which are
all up.
The Dracunculus came up at the same time as the Helicodiceros, but the
others
have all been up since November. There are also several pots of
Arisaema and
Pinellia that have not come up yet, and I do not expect them for some
time yet.
I pot the bulbs on a
layer of sand, with a rich medium of peat, compost,
pumice and sand around and on top. The bottom sand layer seems to help
prevent
rot.
I really hope this helps
you Peter, and anyone else out there that
enjoys these wonderful aroids!!
Happy days,
Christopher
AUTOTEXTLIST \s "E-mail
Signature" D.
Christopher Rogers
Invertebrate
Ecologist/Taxonomist
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EcoAnalysts,
Inc.
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Woodland
CA 95695 USA
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-----Original
Message-----
From:
aroid-l-bounces@gizmoworks.com [mailto:aroid-l-bounces@gizmoworks.com]On Behalf Of Baumfarn Webmaster
Sent: Wednesday,
February 07, 2007
1:30 PM
To: Discussion of
aroids
Subject: Re: [Aroid-l]
Helicodiceros potting
Hi Christopher,
can you please be so kind and tell me at which time of the year Heli-mu
starts
to thrive and what kind of climate you have normally at that time.
thanks
Peter
D. Christopher Rogers wrote:
Hiyer!
Here
in central California, we have had some unusually cold weather this
year. We
went for a whole week with lows between –5C (22F) and 1C (33F). We
still are
having some frost in any place shady most mornings, but my
Helicodiceros (both
new offsets and old plants) are coming up and looking great!
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