This weekend, while sending stuff out (& doing some repotting now that NASC helped me free up space), I found some tubers ...
1st was a U. geminiloba that I was sending out:
.... then a U. alpina that was growing in a 3.5" pot. I was moving it into a 4" square net pot and was shocked at all the 'marbles' ...
(they were scattered all around the perimeter of the pot):
This plant has been in a 'resting phase' for a few months now - no new leaves...
The one thing I've found with those 4" net pots is that my plants have all taken off when switched over. However - when you make a utric happy, there's both good & bad ....
(pardon the misc. debris on my basement potting bench). I'm definitely having issues keeping plants from invading the pots of their neighbors. Even the U. quelchii (not shown) is busting out and sending leaves & rolons out from everywhere (20-30 leaves...). Moof - is this why you've got glass around the pots of your big utrics?
Some unrelated comments/observations from the past few months:
- a month or 2 ago, I allowed aerial stolons from both a U. nelumbifolia & a U. humboldtii clone to reach the lower reaches of my 75 gal tank where there is a layer of live LFS (I felt reasonably safe since all of the other utric pots are sitting on pots to raise them closer to the lights). Within a few weeks, both had launched the largest leaves that I've seen from any of my plants to date. Then a week or two later, the U. nelumbifolia sent up three simultaneous flower stalks. The largest was over 1/8" diameter near the base. I've had to train it multiple times to keep from frying in the lights - it is probably close to 3' long. I'm not sure what the two plants find down there that is so much better than in any pot - but I'd love to find out ...
I'm also thinking that I'm going to need to stop this experiment soon before those two completely own the tank (although - I sure would like to see a U. humboldtii flower 1st)
- I'm not too happy with my treefern experiments - the U. asplundii has grown and colonized the slab but doesn't appear as happy as the others in LFS netpots. The U. jamesoniana has grown but not very well. It seems that the treefern is probably staying too dry in my environment - even with at least one spraying every morning. I'm playing with some ideas now related to the terracotta 'branches' filled with water ...
- the U. unifolia that I got last year isn't U. unifolia. It's apparently u. asplundii - should have flower pics (lots) in a week or three.
- U. 'Jitka' continues to grow with new leaves approaching an inch ...
I gave it it's own net pot this weekend - hopefully I didn't kill it (same with my largest U. geminiloba).
Congrats to those with the new flowers coming!!