Growing Amorphophallus Titanum from Seeds for entires season largest flower in the world

Back in January of 2015 I ordered 60 amorphophallus titanum (arum titan) seeds off eBay, and have since been selling all of them except for one for myself to keep. These are grown in pro-mix HP potting mix with mushroom compost mixed in to hold the soil together better. Once they had leaves completely unfolded, I started fertilizing them with water soluble miracle gro. I also added in some epsom salts, myccorhizae, and azomite to make sure they have the nutrients they need. Almost all of them came up, some sooner than others. It has been an entire year, and now almost all of these plants are in the hands of others.

They took 2-3 weeks to start sprouting roots and nubs.

Tree Peony Blooms 2015

This year is definitely the best year so far for blooms, and they should get better from here on out. Here's a sample of what I have.

Some of them are grown from seed however those all tend to be pretty boring single blooms, nowhere near as impressive as the known cultivars. The do appear to however carry more vigor than the other ones. I will likely dig those out and replace them with more impressive plants. 

Mid summer fruiting vegetables

Here are some of my climbing vegetables producing fruits, most which can be harvested any time.

Fuzzy gourds/wintermelons: The fuzzy gourds tend to be longer, and wintermelons are more round, but both taste about the same. Fuzzy gourds are better adapted to grow on trellises while the wintermelons are better grown on the ground because they are really good at growing roots off their stems, especially when soil is mounded over them.

 

Tree peonies finally making some good growth for 2014

Ever since May, it looks like most of the tree peonies have started to take off, and many of them have flower buds which should start blooming in about 3 weeks.

Some of the Japanese tree peonies with flower buds. They tend to make their vertical growth very quickly, and then leaves increase in size afterwards.

In ground peonies waking up after a warm week 2014

Finally, most of my peonies have broken out of their shells, so here are the photos. We just had 2 days of temperatures over 80F which will make many plants including peonies break their dormancy.

Herbaceous

Taking a look at the results from tree or itoh peonies grafted last fall

One of the things I experimented with is the grafting of some tree and itoh peonies and I'm finding that there has clearly been bud swelling from these grafted plants which is a clear indication that the grafts have taken. I have taken them from scions and nurse roots of all sizes ranging from the 1/4 inch diameter stuff to 3 inch diameter/ 5lb nurse roots attached to a whole tree peony branch. The purpose of this is to see the results and learn from them so I can develop an understanding of the true requirements of getting successful grafts.

Here's one of the massive ones where I take the biggest herbaceous nurse roots I can find, and hook it up with a nice big branch and these seem to be taking very well as expected. The buds are fattening up on the scion meaning that energy from the nurse root is already getting pumped in there.

Removing the tarps for good to let the give tree peonies some air

My peonies have been tarped for 3-4 months now, and I can finally get a sneak peak into the results. Some of them have done a good amount of growth underneath the tarps even though the average outdoor temperatures has lingered only around 32F for the past 2 weeks. It has been colder than average for the entire winter however it looks like the ground will no longer freeze so it should be safe to expose them to the air.

Here are some of the tree peonies that have really sprouted fairly well. The Chinese tree peonies seem to sprout way sooner than the Rockii ones. 

Propagating some Tree peonies

I visited Cricket Hill Gardens last weekend, and came back with some seeds and scions. I have germinated them from seed successfully in the past so it shouldn't be a problem this time around with fresh seeds.

These are supposed to be white Rockii tree peonies.

They are supposed to germinate next spring since they are still yellowish and have their moisture.

Peony update, almost fully leafed

In the last post, all the peonies were just waking up, but it has been 4 weeks since then, and they are almost fully grown for the year. Peonies tend to make almost all their growth before June which is when they typically flower.

Here are a few Japanese tree peonies which are noticeably larger and healthier than they were last year so most of them shouldn't be relying on their herbacous nurse roots anymore.

Some of them have flower buds already on their 2nd year as grafted plants.

Distinguishing all kinds of peonies

I like growing as many kinds of peonies as possible so I've grown them from seed as well as purchased many plants to get together a nice collection. I'm not even too concerned about the names anymore, but I am able to tell their age, and whether they are herbaceous, itoh or tree peonies just by their appearance. I'm only selecting no more than 7 of each type as it would be too long of a blog post to post hundreds of photos.

Here are some 1st year tree peonies which are just starting to come out this year. They usually make no more than 1-3 leaves on the 1st year while there has been a case where I've gotten 6 leaves before. These have just started coming out after a good week of rain and temperatures slightly above freezing.

Taking down the greenhouse for spring 2013

This year, spring came kind of late, but this weekend, it is finally in the 60s with a forecast that looks OK. I decided to take off the greenhouse that has been up since 23 September of last year. These plants have been under a greenhouse for 6 1/2 months, but they are still looking pretty good. I keep mostly bamboos in this thing.

It took about an hour to move all the stuff out and clean up the area.

Peony seedlings getting ready to take off

If you have been following my posts, you would know that I'm obsessed with these plants, especially when they are actively growing. We have had unusually cold temperatures for the past couple months, but it looks like the soil is finally starting to thaw out as temperatures are supposed to moderate by March.

I'm seeing that many of these are clearly tree peony seedlings, but some of them could be herbaceous or even intersectional (itoh) peony seedlings as these come from various sources with different leaf shapes. 

Here are some pictures. Enjoy.

Removing the tarp to take out the peonies and bamboos 2013

It looks like the threat of a major freeze into the teens is diminishing, and a lot of plants are starting to wake up so I decided to take off the tarp for my potted plants.

Here's the tarp back in February under 1ft of snow

Some tree peonies waking up very early in 2013

This year some of my tree peonies, mainly the ones that sprouted last year are waking up very early, even earlier than they did last year so I hope they know what they are doing. I do have a few set to sprout this year which are coming up early however those are not nearly as developed as these.

These are mainly Chinese tree peony seedlings. 

December peony buds, and buds for other plants 2012

With November and early December, temperatures will often fall withing the ideal vernalization zone of 40F to 45F which causes many plants to develop their buds in preparation for spring. For my climate, vernalization usually occurs once in the late fall, and then again by early spring as the plants produce the growth hormones needed for flowering, and overall vigor for the following year.

Here are some pictures of the tree & itoh peonies. The buds for the herbaceous peonies still haven't popped out of the soil yet so I didn't take pictures of those. They don't look like much now, but some of these may have enough energy stored from this year to produce flowers next year. They usually start swelling more by the beginning of March when daylight gets noticeably longer and temperatures start to rise.

Here are just a few of my tree/ itoh peony buds. It would be a very long post if I posted pictures of every one of them.

Growing Ensete Ventricosum Maurelii by the window

I decided to get a jump start on my Ensete Maurelii so that I can have bigger plants to bring outside by the spring time. I purchased these guys 3 weeks ago, and they have since put out a couple of leaves. The only thing I hope for is that their pseudo-stems stay healthy and strong, and giving them light from a south facing window will hopefully be enough.

There are 3 plants total.

November 13th 2012: They looked kind of skinny when they came out of the box.

Getting new bamboos on my road trip

last weekend, I happened to be in the area of a fellow bamboo collector so I got a few bamboos from him. I acquired phyllostachys Shanghai III, phyllostachys prominens, phyllostachys huangwenzhu inversa, and another cultivator of phyllostachys parvifolia. It was already getting dark by the time I got there so the pictures may be a bit blurry. Here are the groves.

Phyllostachys Shanghai III: This one behaves and looks just like Dulcis, except it may be a bit more vigorous with straighter culms.

Pictures of my garlic in the fall of 2012

Garlic tends to grow a little bit in the fall. The foliage is usually hardy enough to make it through our zone 6a winters without much damage, and they come back much stronger by March. I grow around 2000 cloves each year not including the bulbils that take 1.5 years to reach full size.

Here are some of my garlic beds

Overwintering the bananas and other plants for winter of 2012/2013

This year I'm overwintering all the bananas with barrels that have their bottom cut out. The steps are.

1. Cut off all the excess foliage which can't survive the winter anyways
2. Shrink wrap all the trunks
3. Add additional insulation if necessary
4. Stick a cut open plastic barrel over the entire banana stem
5. Fill the barrel with leaves
6. Add additional leaf bags with leaves if the stem is too long
7. Shrink wrap the entire set up to keep it stable

Here's the musa mekong giant which was much easier to over-winter since it is still very small.

Progress of the musa mekong giant "itinerans"

I tried purchasing musa mekong giant last year however they never made it through the winter when I tried planting them outside. The appeared to still be alive by the spring time however too much moisture in the spring must have killed them out so I ended up ordering a couple more of them from eBay this spring. Here's the links to when I tried them last fall.
http://stevespeonygarden.blogspot.com/2011/10/new-banana-plants-musa-mekong-giant.html

http://stevespeonygarden.blogspot.com/2011/10/fall-update-on-banana-plants-2.html

I bought them as tiny plants in 2 inch pots some time in April of this year to replace the ones I lost last fall.

3 May 2012

Plant 1 on the right, and plant 2 on the left.