Folks, I know nothing about tropical plants. But I wanted to post this one as it surely looks spectacular to me. I thought it was a Plumeria, and posted it there, but those nice folks sent me here.
A Magnifient Specimen!
Another shot.
That is very neat and definitely unique!!!
Beautiful..........and it does look like a Plumeria! Except for the roots!
I really don't know anything about tropicals. I went to this greenhouse to buy a yellow Clivia. But this plant just blew me away. It is over 5' tall and more than 2' of that is the roots.. How old do you think it is?
Beautiful and unique.I would guess that it was grown from a cutting.Age would also be a guess.I would say between 6 and 10 years old.
That is gorgeous!!
I'm going back there next weekend. I'll have to ask the owner about it. Someone on the Plumeria forum wanted to know if it was for sale and the price. I didn't even look. I'm afraid to ask. I might just have to take it home, and I'm sure that wouldn't be good for it's health. LOL Loved to death!
Looks like a Desert rose to me. Look at the flowers.
Yes, That's what the folks on the Plumeria Forum said. I've have never seen a Desert Rose.
I grew them years ago but always killed them during the winter. I have one now but I'm trying to ignore it so I don't kill it too. Everyone else on this forum seems to be successful growers- there are lots of postings on them.
That is one awesome specimen. I'm sure they don't have it for sale but imagine how old it is, or how much it is worth, wowow wow~
Lakeside, I'm sure you're right. The man who owns this place is a loveable eccentric. There was a behemouth begonia there that I wanted a small one of. He had none potted. He broke off two large starts and gave them to me.There are some plants in there not to be believed. I didn't know what this was, just that it was magnificent.
Here's that giant begonia. It's about 3' tall and 4 to 5' across.
I love places like that. Unfortunately they are few and far between!
I grow both plumeria and adenium.
I do that to my plumies ;)
Spectacular shot!
and enviable plant!
Malestrom, You can take a ride and go here and see it and other incredible plants.
http://davesgarden.com/products/go/view/20873/
Too far for me! I'd like to see a sticky with greenhouses or nurseries that sell this sort of thing- especially away from the west coast.
Well, I went back and asked about the Adenum. It is 15 years old. It's not for sale as there is sentimental value attached to it. Plus, I didn't notice it, but if you look at the photo, the dish is wider than the door. They were able to tilt it sideways to bring it in when it was empty, but not now.
Shaping it was a project done over a period of years by the owner's nephew. He kept raising it with a come along a few inches every few weeks. It was his pet project.
Wow all these years and I never knew it was so close to me.
I can be there in 30 to 45 minutes.
I feel a trip coming on hehe.
Malestrom, Wait until after Christmas. I was there yesterday and they've taken a lot of their really neat stuff into the back to make room for all of the Poinsettas, Christmas Cactus and such.
I have no idea what a lot of this stuff is. The owner kept popping in to see me, but I could only ask about things that were in front of me at those times. So much of it isn't labeled.
Molamola, It must have had something to do with the raising of it out of the soil.
So...should we try raising our plants out of the soil like this? It is an interesting effect. It would probably help prevent rotting as well.
Anytime I repot, and I'm a beginner, I bring a DR out of tthe soil by about 1/4 of the roots.
Wilfred, are you reading this? Is this right?
Oh, and I have an exacto knife that I carefully cut off the little roots with. I know, I said they were interesting in a post a while back, but now I think I like the big lump caudex to be smooth.
I'm wondering if this plant, the one at the top, was started from a cutting that was placed in a flat tray with only an inch of potting soil, to make a lot of fat roots that could be trained like this? Yes, lifting often, and training the roots, trimming little stray roots.
Can you tell that I'm impressed, and have been thinking about this plant? Thank you, Stormyla, for showing this to us!
The Adenium is probably grown from a rooting cutting or have been trained by pruning the roots. I do that myself - training Adeniums by leaf, stem and root pruning. It is straightforward and easy to get nice "bonsai-like results" even from trained seedlings.
Regards,
Martin
I took a photo of this smaller one that was growing there. Don't know if this gives any clues about the big one. This one was definitely for sale.
It's not normal to grow them in such shallow dishes, is it?
I have seen them in shallow dishes but they were wired to stop them from tiping over, the man told me that is the way to show off the roots.
Adenium are grown for several reasons
1- flower
2 caudex
3 graft stock
to achieve a nice caudex growing in bowl shaped pots is the way to go.
Deep pots encourage 'carrot' like roots and a tube shaped body.
Using a bowl forces the roots to twist and turn before they thicken and when u raise them you can shape them by braiding or twisting.
I have two seedlings in flat things, one a lid off a pie, I can see the roots through the clear plastic, and the other in a plastic tray from some hamburger, it had two roots, so I put a little stick between them, to make them go in different directions. These haven't had much time to grow much...
That's interesting, carrot roots. I've always wanted to plant carrots in gravel, to see the funny roots. Is a carrot an annual Caudiciform? hahahahaha!
I had no idea that this took such effort. I thought it just grew that way.
I'm glad that I posted the photo where it is appreciated.
After reading this I decided I had a perfect plant to try this with. I learned alot from this thread. Thank you to everyone here. It was in a deeper pot and I planted it a bit to deep. So I repotted into a shallow wider pot cleaning off alot of the pearlite soil mix and arranged them carefully around the cauldex and set them in the soil mix. I watered with B1 and returned it to its sunny window. Do you think it will eventually look as beautifull as that one?
Here is another pic from different angle. oops same pic
This message was edited Mar 18, 2010 4:21 PM
The other angle.
Close up.
Hey, froggie! The plant is something like fifteen years old.
Your plant is looking hopeful. Something worries me, the leaves look brown on the edges, which is a sign of fertilizer burn.
Water when dry, but with plain water. Perhaps after an hour, water again with liquid fertilizer in the water.
Good luck! I want one like that big one, too!
Melissa
Tips were sunburned. Daughter waterd in full sun and the tips got wet.:(
I dont fertilize in winter im waiting for temps to rise first then I will fertilize with 9-59-9 and epsom salt.
Longggg read, but well worth the effort!
http://cubits.org/containergardeningwith/thread/view/1095/
9-59-9 not good.
I think I read somewhere that you should keep the caudex shaded for a while after raising it, which makes sense, if you were underground for many years, would you want to be sitting in the sun?
I need to move it to a partial shade window til mid spring? This is a project that I need all input I can get. Its been in a window that gets full sun till 1pm then part sun til 3.