By Barbaraolive
Pembrokeshire, United Kingdom
i was given five fancy auricular plants for my birthday. I intend growing them in pots any tips on planting soil,location, hardiness etc would be welcome
- 9 Jul, 2012
Answers
My wife grows a few of these, hence my earlier question about where to get them (but more specialist type) and I built an auricular theatre for her. Nothing too fancy but with a roof to keep direct rain off and painted black at the back to set them off nicely. This way the rain does not spoil the leaves and you can control watering and feeding more easily. The flowering this year has been better and there have been fewer losses.
10 Jul, 2012
I would love to have a theatre for mine, but beyond my woodworking skills, pocket and nowhere handy to put it...............................yet!
10 Jul, 2012
The plants are hardier than the pots (some of my clay ones exploded after being frozen, but the plants were ok). They need a rich, well drained soil based compost. I keep mine in a shaded part of the garden in Summer and bring them under cover in Autumn.
Strip off any dead or dying leaves and keep moist but not water logged until Spring. Then as they begin to regrow feed with half strength liquid tomato feed every 2 weeks until they flower, then switch to Maxicrop.
Watch out for red spider mite and Vine weevil.
Actually they are a lot easier than it sounds. the only reason for indoor growing is that the rain spoils the flowers on the fancy ones. You could just plant them out in the garden.
9 Jul, 2012