I have a Caracalla vine which is flowering now. It has been planted since 17th June 2006 and has only just flowered! I went to Monticello specially to buy the seed (I live in Malaysia and Yes! I am mad). Please can anyone tell me how to save the seed and plant them. How long will the vine live? What must I do to make it happy. I feel that 18 months to flower is a long time. I give it Miracle Grow every couple of weeks. Please help me!
Saving my Caracalla vine
Aloha judithellidge, welcome!
I think these vines must take a long time because mine took 10 months from seed to flower. Worth the wait, though. The seeds grow in little "bean pods" and take a fair time to ripen, about 6 weeks for me. I have read that the flowers are only polinated by small ants, something we have plenty of in Hawaii, other than that you can polinate with a paintbrush by unfurling the flower. If you get a seed pod put something over it such as old pantihose because the pod twists and bursts open when it is ripe - seed will go everywhere! As for planting, I just stuck them in some potting soil in one of those plastic containers that you buy tomatoes in from the supermarket, watered them until just damp and put the whole thing in the shade on the lanai. Honestly can't remember how long they took to germinate - not too long or I would have remembered.
I have no idea how long the vine will live because mine is still green although I haven't had flowers on it for about 3 months now. I suspect that it might just be evergreen here...
Good luck, the flowers are beautiful and smell like hyacinth to me.
Jenny
I plant my seed every January, these are not annuals, I just plant more seed every year to give the plants away. They always bloom and seed first year when I do this in January. They start blooming here in zone 9 in August and continue blooming and setting seed until the first freeze when I go out and pick all the bean pods and dry inside in a paper sack. Once the freeze hits, they start wilting back until they are just sad little stems, and thats it until Spring when it starts warming up and they send up shoots from the roots. I don't know what zone you are in, but if you are in zone 10 or above I doubt they would even die back. In which case you could let the bean pods dry naturally on the vine.
Here is a picture of the green bean pods. Hope that helps. I long ago decided this is my favorite plant in the garden, I could not imagine a year going by without smelling that glorious fragrance. :~)
Donna
ooops, forgot to answer all your questions, sorry! When I plant mine, which I just did some yesterday, lol, I nick the seed and soak over night in warm/hot water from the tap. The next day they will be all swollen up and I just plant them in damp potting mix and cover, the depth is about the size of the seed and I don't measure, I just poke a hole and shove the seed in and cover it up. Then I put a plastic sandwich back loosely over the top and put in a warm place. I usually set mine on a little shelf above my computer monitor because it is almost always on and puts out a lot of heat. I find 69 degrees to be about the average heat and they love it. In about 5 days I have seedlings. Once they get up a ways, I take the bag off. This is what they usually look like when I take off the bag.
As for my treatment of the vines once they are in the ground, full sun and plenty of water. About once a year I throw a handful of 16-16-16 on the ground and thats it. Very low maintenance.
There, think I got it all. LOL
Donna
I'm whiffin, Chrissy! It has been a month since I whiffed and I am more then ready! LOL
I don't know if it is a climate thing or not but I don't nick the seed ...I just soak and plant ...in this garden after all the rain the seeds are popping up everywhere ...if you don't pull them out they form a tuber come Winter.Funny you know they have been asking on the radio for seed because there is a shortage ...hard to believe.
To answer the question about the lifespan ...I have two vines that came here with me 16 years ago and they were perhaps 3/4 years old then.I moved in the Winter and dug the tubers out and placed them in a polystyrene box of damp sand ...planted them out once the weather was warm enough and sure enough there they were! the green tendrils sprouted .
Unless you have snow I think these things are as tough as old boots!
remember they do not require much feeding as they set their own nitrogen and will give mostly leaf if you do that ...if flowering is shy throw some flower and fruit type stuff at it ...good luck
chrissy
Chrissy, your plant is much older then my oldest, glad to know they have such a lifespan! And boy, are you right about them forming a tuber or ten...HA Here is a pic I put in plantfiles a couple years ago when I had to remove a corkscrew plant from a big tree pot, think it was a 15 gallon pot. This was a 1 year old plant and look at all those tubers! Those deck boards it is laying on were 6 inches wide to give you an idea of the true size. Have you ever tried to separate and pot up the tubers?
Yes the tubers I moved were huge ...my older trunks of the vine that come up from the tubers are 8" across sure would not like to dig them out today! :) by the way have you seen the way the pods just pop and fling their seed all over the place?.First time it happened to me was in my home alone and I thought there were intruders in the house ...it was the pods popping loudly and scattering all over the place!
LOLOL, what a hoot! Bet that is one you will not forget! Easy to laugh now, but probably not so funny at the time. So you dry yours indoors too?
Fortunately, it has never happened to me, we don't use our heater in the winter and it stays pretty cool in here & I think the dry heat is what they need to pop open. They just get real hard as they turn brown & after prying about 100 pods open with my bare hands, I finally tell DH to get the pliers, I quit!! LOL
A friend of mine told me a couple years ago that the kids were sitting at the table doing their homework and started yelling for her to stop! She said what! They said STOP THROWING SEEDS AT US!!! Sure enough, there were corkscrew seeds on the floor and table, she looked up on the fridge where she had set the bag and as you know, they were blowing themselves apart and the kids thought she was pelting them with the seeds. LOLOL Her and I just roared over that, probably because that IS something we would do, if only we had thought of it. HA
That is funny ...no it was just me preparing to send seeds out to others and they were laid out on newspaper on the table ...I had my back turned and all of a sudden bang ...bang bang! skittle skittle rattle ping! as they bounced off the glass cabinets ...skittled along on the the floor tiles etc, once you have seen that in action you know why they pop up everywhere in the garden. This has happened to me once before and it was wisteria pods which went off in a tin shed ...they sounded like firecrackers!
happy gardening !
chrissy
Thank you all so much. I feel safer! Today I found the bean pod type things and will go and buy a pair of pantihose to wrap them in. MUST have more of these beautiful plants. If I have success collecting seed can I send some to any of you? Is it OK to keep it in a pot? I use MIracle Grow (brought from U.K. unobtainable here). The scent is wonderful. Can't wait for the popping.
Judith
Hello all!! a freind gave me a cutting of this lovely plant It did not make it :( so I never got a chance to smell it.I have learned a thing or 2 since joining DH and would like to try again. Would anyone be willing to part with a few seeds? I have papaya and a few brug seeds. :*)
Kim
Aloha Kim, I have 3 or 4 seeds left over - would you like those? Sorry I don't have more, I gave them all away.
For everyone who wanted gloriosa lily seeds they are going to be on their way tomorrow.
Jen
Aloha Jen, 3or 4 is all that I need.Big smile here :).I grew gloriosa lily before very pretty left them at my old house hope they took care of them.Jen I am in the addy exchange or I could Dmail you.
Thanks soooo much.!!
Kim
You are welcome, Judith. Glad we were able to help you. Thanks so much for the seed offer but none for me, I weighed the paper grocery bag after my FIRST picking because it was so heavy and it weighed like 25 pounds! LOL Then I had a 2nd picking the next day and filled up a lunch sack before I quit. There are still seeds out there but I am just leaving them. I am being laaaaaazy but am calling it an experiement to see if any seeds are viable after being frozen...HA
Yes, you can grow these in pots, just be aware of those tubers that form, the pic I posted further up was a 1 year old plant in a big 15 gallon tree pot that the top of the pot hits at my knees, and the tubers after 1 year were already down at the bottom of the pot! These things really take off when in the ground. I planted some seedlings on my wooden arbors over my sliding doors and they nearly covered the whole arbor first summer!
Donna