The Aroid Thread
 

Great idea!!! Last night I was snapping some early photos of an Amorphophallus putting up it's first bloom for me. Good thing I planted out of smelling range from the house. I'll post some pics later too.

I will start by making your mouths water with photos I took last year at Planting Fields Arboretum, Oyster Bay, Long Island, NY. - http://www.orchidboard.com/community...ry.php?cat=718
I have a slew of picture from this year I have to add to my Gallery and a Calla Lily growing in my backyard.
Hey Tindo, can I also post my potted Alocasia? :hmm

Wow Dorothy! You really do have anything and everything ready to post! Great pics!

ok, Tindo, I promise... this weekend I will take a picture of my Aroid-Monster-baby with its many little babies for you ;) Amorphophallus konjiak

It's a gorgeous plant!!!

but until then, just a reminder of this my baby in venezuela, which you have already seen: http://www.orchidboard.com/community...bulbifer_1.jpg

NOID Calla
 

This is a NOID Calla Lily that was gotten last year as a gift, was planted outside, died off and came back this spring. It has eastern exposure so it gets morning sun and what ever else mother nature provides it. Occasionally, it gets the left-over fertilizer from the orchids.
I still have bulbs I have yet to pot up ... I know, my bad :blushing:

Thanks, Tin :)
I'll post photos when they open up a bit more.

Alocasia
 

Here is my NOID Alocasia - it looks like Alocasia x amazonica 'Polly' seen here - PlantFiles: Detailed information on African Mask, Amazon Elephant's Ear Alocasia x amazonica 'Polly'

It's potted and sits along side my vanilla vine and Cochleanthes .. it gets dappled sunlight and it's kept close to the sheer-curtained window.
1 - Plant
2 - Small leaves at the base with the bud peeking from behind
3 - Emerging bud
Enjoy :)

I'll keep my nostrils ready, Tin ..
Last year, if I remember correctly :roll: , the bud blasted :(
So I am hoping to find out this year :nod:
I did have a spider mite problem - I wanted to choke the suckers so I wiped down the leaves with olive oil since I didn't have any neem .. and so far, no mites and the leaves are shiny .. nothing deterimental as of now .. I am keeping an eye on it ..

No photo of it ? Tin :hmm

So what is the trick to getting Konjiak to grow? I purchased several blubs over the winter and they are still dormant. I have them potted in nice soil and they are exposed to a decent amount of sunlight with temperatures from high-70's during the day to low-50's at night. Is this just too cool?
The climate here is perfect for many aroids, I have lots of NOIDS growing in my garden and the nearby woods. But these amorphophallus just won't grow.
Not sure if this speaks to my conditions well or not but my relatively young calla lilly is about 3.5-feet tall with a equally wide spread...I've gotten nearly a dozen blooms already this year.

NOID Opening
 

Here are my NOID calla lilies a bit more open :)

Tin - Your Alocasia is looking good ! :):Tup:

Hi mrobert, Amorphophallus konjiak needs quite warm temps.. I keep my dormant bulb wrapped in a piece of newspaper at not lower than 68F, maybe down to 60F at night (I mist them every once in ahile, when I remember, but do not think it is necessary at all - I do it because normally I have many little ones in the same packet) I do not re-pot the bulbs until I do not see new growth... Then I repot them in normal soil, keep them warm, and moist but not wet, until the leaf has open, at that point they start drinking like elephants!! Once the leaf if mature, they can tolerate lower temps, but I think 50 is indeed too low!!
They will also need a lot of light (but not necessarily direct sun - even though they can tolerate it), lots of water and nutrients (now you know where the water used for watering my S/H chids goes)

Once you get the trick with it, it's a very easy plant and will start producing masses of new bulbs every year. I promised to take a pic of my plant, but have not been able yet. i will do it this WE the latest, and you will see what I mean with masses on new bulbes :) I normally end up composting them, as most of my friends have already been plagued with them :)

My Amorphophallus bulbifer as promised:

http://www.orchidboard.com/community..._-_resized.jpg

Thank you so much for you advice and help!
Composting!?!? NOOOOoooooo.....send them to me, I'll pay for the postage from Basel!:)
-Mateo

if you really wnat, I can send some next winter ;) but... wouldn't it be a problem to send them to USA? wouldn't they need phytosanitary permits & Co?

Just a question in the air... If someone knows the right answer... :)

and if no special permits are needed... get ready for the post :)


for next Winter I will have at least 6 new bulbs!

Maybe Tindo would be also interested?

Amorphophallus konjak
 

here are the pics I promised :)

the first two pics are from April. This year the plant started producing babies before the mother had started to grow... so, they were already grown by the time big lef started to grow at aprox. 7'' per day.
Pics 3 & 4, are from today, and show the whole plant plus babies.
Pics 5 & 6 show some details of the "stem" and the lower part of the leaflets.
Pic 7 shows how large the this year babies are. 6 in total (maybe more in the coming months) and all in different sizes! This are the ones I could ship to you, if you find out it wouldn't be a problem to receive them via normal post.

:D

P.D.- The plant is currently inside because of a very cold weather front we are having now in the Basel region: Yesterday I had to wear my winter coat again!!! And I normally do not complain because of low temps, as I love it cold!! But 50F in June is really too much!! :(

Hi Tindo,
my plant was supposed to bloom this year for the first, however it just decided to wait a bit longer... maybe next year? So, I have not been granted yet with the "pleasure" of this stinker at my flat yet ;)

However, knowing it from the Botanical Garden... it is a very strong putrid smell :( Luckily it does not last too long, may 2 or 3 days.. ;) But the leave are so great it is worth to satnd the smell for a few days (and you have too, because it blooms at the end of Winter, and therefore it is still to cold to place it outside ;)

Tindo, an east facing window should be fine. I grow my plant in east/south window, but am sure it can grow good with less light (at the Botanical Garden in Basel, they do not seem to get more light than my plant). The plant is active between April and September, so winter darkness is not a problem ;)

I remember I have red once of one Amorphophallus with a nice scence, but cannot remember which or where I read that. I can suggest you to try Amorph. bulbifer. The plant is smaller, the flower is really impressive, and it smells bad only for about 3h one evening, and then no more.. but if the flowers is not pollinated you can enjoy it (the flower!) for about 2 weeks.

I have a few aroids in my collection, LOL. I really need to take some updated photos of some though. I'll try to do that this week. Here are a couple of new pics.

Alocasia macrorhizza albo-variegata...almost 5 ft tall. I take babies off these 2 mother plants every year and plant them out in the yard (they are hardy here) and so I have colonies of these on my property.
http://www.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ids/varalo.jpg

Alocasia tigrina reticulata. Funny thing about this one...I've had it for several years. In 2004, we were hit by 2 tropical storm/hurricanes within two weeks of each other, Frances and Jeanne. Our power was out for 21 days, so there was no electricity in the greenhouse. It flooded in there initially, there was a foot of water, but it ran off pretty quickly. Out of all my collection of in-ground greenhouse plantings, this was the only plant I thought I had lost. But just THIS SPRING, FOUR YEARS LATER, it suddenly just REAPPEARED in the same old spot it had been planted in before. Why it stayed dormant so long, I have NO IDEA. But it just proved to me, never give up on anything!
http://www.photobucket.com/albums/v4...aroids/tig.jpg

Philodendron "Ace of Spades" showing 3 leaf phases...brand new Cabernet Red, slightly older maroon, and old dark. This is a fantastic climbing philo for those who have room to grow it. It does tend to get huge, these leaves are over a foot long and pretty much almost as wide. It needs a strong totem. This one is on the same totem with a variegated green and white Philo that goes by several different names. One is Philo imbe. Also in this pic is Monstera obliqua (Swiss Cheese) and Rhaphidophora tetrasperma Ginny
http://www.photobucket.com/albums/v4...aroids/ace.jpg

This is probably one of my favorite philos, P. verucosum (probably misspelled that). It was a teensy tiny thing when I got it a couple of years ago, now that its firmly established itself on the totem and started to really climb the leaves just keep getting bigger and better.
http://www.photobucket.com/albums/v4...oids/verro.jpg

last one for tonight....
Cercestes mirablis. I really, REALLY like this plant. It started out sort of puny, but after almost 2 years its finally developing into a nice plant. Its in the photo with some Anthurium luxurians x dressleri, which is also a nice plant to have on hand if you like Anthuriums. The new leaves are red/gold, quite showy. Philo gloriosum also in this pic.
http://www.photobucket.com/albums/v4.../cercestes.jpg

Thanks, Tindo!
I make my own. I use large diameter (1.5-2") PVC pipe and wrap it with old cocofiber from basket liners. I like the PVC center because you can add those little elbows and slanty pieces to change directions, and you can extend the totem almost indefinitely as the plant grows. Most of my totems end up at a height of 12 feet and are attached up top to the stabilizing cross struts of the greenhouse so that the weight of the plants won't topple them.

Climbing philos need a support of some type. They are programmed to increase in leaf size and trubk size as they ascend, so if you try to force a climbing philo to stay grounded it will most likely stay small leaved and not reach potential. You don't have to use a totem, you can let it root to the wall of anything. They will root directly onto the wall of my greenhouse if I let them (I don't though because I clean the walls with a pressure washer 2x a year and it would damage them). I have one huge Red Emerald that is totem-less, but I have it secured to the cross beams of the greenhouse wall with heavy duty rubber bungee cords. I have also seen them inother tropical houses allowed to climb on mesh "hammocks" that are suspended between 2 points.

This thread seems to have stalled so I thought I'd see if anyone might be growing other types of aroids.
Ones you might not think about but that pack a big punch and are easy to maintain are Anubias species. These are most commonly sold to aquarium hobbyists for use as submerged plants, but some of them also make great non-submerged plants. I read once that in their natural habitats they generally undergo periods of total submersion combined with drier periods where water recedes and their tops are exposed, so I decided to try a few. I bought this one at the pet store aquarium dept. The literature I read stated that they don;t actually like to be "planted" but that they attach to stuff like submerged logs. So I tied the roots of mine to a stick and put it in the greenhouse stream just near the little waterfall feature. Its grown from a tiny little $1.99 plant to a beautiful blooming aroid. I think this one sort of resembles a peace lily (spathiphyllum) but there are several different species that have different shaped leaves.
http://www.photobucket.com/albums/v4...roids/anub.jpg

Another cool aquatic aroid is Lasia spinosa. You need a large space for this though, preferably a pond as it does get pretty huge. In nature these come from Viet Nam where they grow in streams and wet places as mat forming spreading aroids. They are dangerously armed with sharp spines. They are also called "Unicorn plant" because they have a really cool twisted bloom.

I have a very large colony growing in my greenhouse pond, but discovered quite by accident that this plant is most likely hardy here. I divided a piece off my plant for a trade and the trade fell through, so I threw it out into an outdoor pond to trial it. It lost its topgrowth when air temps hit the lower 20's, but as soon as it warmed up it started to regrow, and now its in bloom. Here are 2 pics, upper and lower. The variegated EE with it is COlocasia Yellow Splash
http://www.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ds/yslasia.jpg
http://www.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ids/yspond.jpg