Weldenia candida

[robg]

I got a pot of this from one of the shows a couple of years ago and have now discovered I have a 150mm dia, 100mm high mass of what I take are tubers.  What do I do with this chunk of plant-ware !

If nothing else, vaguely remembering how much I paid for the original plant, I suspect this must be worth something !!

Rob

[Maggi Young]

Hi, Rob, nice to have you return to the new forum.
I suggest a rootle around the old forum  (still fully searchable) for mentions of Weldenia candida.
I recal some discussion of it there. I do know that Lesley Cox in NX is  very succesful with it, so she will be a good person to give you her tips. You won't get any helpful hints from me......mine died long ago!Well, I could give a "don't do as I did" point.......don't let it get swamped by foliage drooping over from other plants and allowing rot to set in the crowns! I don't think we ever divided it, I was hoping for a 150mm dia, 100mm high mass !!

[Lesley Cox]

Hi Rob, as Maggi says, nice to have you on board again.

I take it the plant is dormant at present and you've tipped it from its pot to find a congested mass? It should be starting into growth quite soon and there may already be growing tips visible. They look very tiny early on but grow to flowering size by the summer.

If it's out of the pot, keep it under cover somewhere cool but not frosty for a couple of days until the roots are slightly soft and flexible because otherwise they are very brittle and snap easily. Then very carefully tease the mass apart into smaller pieces each with at least one growing tip. These can then be potted up and if visibly growing, watered well now but if still fairly dormant, just leave them in a sheltered place to get a good rain when that happens. But I'm forgetting you are in Scotland and it's probably raining as we speak. So don't let it have TOO MUCH water/rain for perhaps a month. It should re-emerge on the pot surface around late April/early May and flower soon after.

When my original one became a tight and congested mass quite impossible to tease apart, I used a high pressure hose on it which got rid of all the compost and left a few finger holes so I could start the division process. I believe it's quite a tough plant really, but with an unjustifiably difficult reputation. I've even put a spade through a big plant in order to divide it. But as Maggi says, don't grow it under other things. It likes the open air and plenty of water when in full growth until it starts to brown off in the late autumn.

Just as a footnote, I generally divide mine a little later in the season, in September (March to you) just at the time growth is underway. It quite literally falls apart into pieces at that stage but yours sounds too big for that and may need help.

[robg]

Thanks Maggi and Lesley for your greetings and assistance. 

Last year was a non-gardening year - at least only the veg and lawn got basic looking after as the garage had to be rebuilt to allow space for my other half's sudden enthusiasm for a sports car and that wouldn't have fitted into the hip width corridor that was all that was available when she bought the car.

So this year is a catch up year finding out all the things that have suffered as a result of neglect.

Lesley - that's great advice.  Based on the Weldenia's habitat, I take it that it will want a well drained compost.  I got the feeling from your post, Maggi, that you must have had it growing outdoors in Aberdeen - on the basis that I am now going to have a significant number of tubers, do you want a couple, Maggi?

Rob
Edinburgh

[David Shaw]

When we bought our W. candida, probably same time/source as Rob, we were advised to unpot it every winter and leave it in a dry, frost free place. Fine for the first couple of years then I decided that the compost in the pot had dries out completely so what was the point in unpotting it? It rotted!
Our plant produced larger and larger tubers each year that forced their way though the drainage holes in the pot and had to be cut free.
The pot enjoyed being outside in summer but wouldn't have survived outside in winter.

[Maggi Young]

Rob, that's a very kind offer, I would be delighted to try to give this very lovely plant another "go".
There is a bit more room ( albeit temporarily) in our glass house now that the BD has gone over to square plastic pots, so I should be able to nab a wee space for a weldenia !

[Lesley Cox]

I tend to take my own frost-freeness (relative) for granted and forget that you in the north of Scotland have rather more than I do. All my weldenias have always been outside through the winters, even the nursery ones which I grow in 2 litre black plastic bags and I've never lost one to frost - or anything else come to that. If you have some to spare Rob, try it outside, planted reasonably deep - say with the growing tips 5 or 7cms beneath the surface and cover it in winter with a good bunch of bracken or something similar. Worth a try don't you think? And yes, well drained compost, with some added grit though the ones I have in straight soil do just as well.

The roots though fleshy, are tremendously stong. One I planted in a hypertufa trough some years ago, pushing its roots against the walls, split the trough down 3 sides and left the plant in a neat cube of compost, quite exposed.

Re the black plastic bags which are sometimes visible in the pics I post, while not aesthically attractive, they are great for growing things in and from my point of view are both cheap and take a lot less water than clay or plastic pots. Water is a consideration here always since my only supply falls from the sky. The straight sides of the bags also provide more root room for the plants.

[robg]

Thanks Lesley
Certainly with the less aggressive winters we now get, a tuber or two in the garden is worth trying - I have a dry (by Scottish standards) south facing bed which I will try it in.  I found the Pacific Bulb Society pages have some guidance on Weldenia so I now know where it comes from and its habitat which helps.

Thanks for your help

Rob

[jomowi]

I had Weldenia for several years, just kept it in a clay pot plunged in sand in a cold frame under a tree with a little fleece protection during very cold spells, had no problems except that I left it too close to the edge one winter and the frost got it.  Never attempted to dry it out or anything and it flowered every year.  I suppose I should have divided it but never got round to trying

Brian Wilson Aberdeen

[robg]

Hi Lesley - this post is really in your direction !

I gently housed down the root ball and ended up with the main plant with a mass of tubers hanging off it plus 4 or 5 small similar plants.  I planted up the latter - one big deep pot with 3 or 4 in it, etc.  I then attacked the main plant and picked off most of the tubers and planted them up individually such that I got 20 odds pots.

I hope I am right in thinking that each tuber will produce a plant !! 

Cheers

Rob

[Lesley Cox]

They will do Rob, if there is the little growing tip at the top. Early in the year it's just pinhead size but still alive and active. Sometimes I get little plants which just have a single thick root of about 3 or 4 cms long but they all come through and even tiny ones will flower by late summer.

Maybe I should have said up above that while I grow my nursery plants in the black plastic bags, I ceertainly never use them for shows or displays. Stricly clay or more often, black or deep green rigid plastic.

[Lesley Cox]

Rob I'm sure you realize now that you're in for the long haul. "Oh goodness, what will I do with all these little plants? I know, I'll start a small nursery." That's exactly how mine started, 47 years ago though not with Weldenia.

[charlotte]

In searching past articles for other information I came across the most interesting article on the subject written by none other than Lesley Cox.  Anyone having interest in the subject or just a very good read might want to check the AGS of  June 1998. 
Lesley, a wonderful article; is the subject still with you?  Have you gone on to populate all of the southern hemisphere with this beautiful plant?  Hope you will be able to keep up with demands after this bit of advertising.

Best wishes

[Lesley Cox]

Thank you Charlotte. Yes it is still with me and flourishing I'm happy to say. Not quite the southern hemisphere but certainly NZ and a lot have now gone to other parts of the world. I'm rather intending to send a picture to the AGS online show, today.

[Paul T]

Lesley,

Did mine originally come from you by circuitous methods?