Titanotrichum oldhamii

[Ali Baba]

Anyone have any tips on getting this lovely plant to flower in the UK? I have a pot grown one which overwinters in a frost free greenhouse and spends the summer outdoors. It is growing like the clappers this year but no sign of flowers, yet anyway...

[Giles]

Oh well, I realise this isn't going to look good, but here goes.....
I bought 3 plugs from Dibleys in the Spring.
Put them each in a 4" flowerpot with peat based multipurpose compost.
Placed them on my kitchen windowsill (North facing) and watered them with Baby Bio (what else?) every day.
They are all coming in to flower now, at about 7-9" height.
I probably wouldn't have done it this way if I thought about it properly......

On occassions when I've been away, or forgotten to water them, they wilt spectacularly; but revive if left in a bucket of water overnight.
I live in an old/cold/damp house and it rarely gets above 15 deg C
Hope this helps.

[Ali Baba]

Thanks Giles, that's interesting and similar to my experience; I had 3 plugs from another online supplier the year before last. I kept them in my cool greenhouse in 4 inch pots and they tried to flower but I pinched the flower spikes off to put the energy into growing as they were very small. I lost all but one that winter, the remaining plant looked dead but when I turned it out of the pot it had dormant shoots, so I put it into a 6 inch pot and it grew like Topsy, so it eventually ended up in an 8 inch pot outside over the summer. This year its in a 12 inch pot and is absolutely huge but no signs of flowers forming as yet although it has plenty of shoots some of which look like they might eventually develop buds.
This is it now, under the shade of a Trachycarpus. The whole plant is about a meter across, it will soon outgrow your windowsill!

[Giles]

..and looks like this, now
Not sure how much love there is for marginally hardy gesneriads.

[ashley]

Very nice