No clue on the Arisarum, but the Arisaema in pots is easy depending on species and you should have great success....I grew several hundred in pots in years past, but this year I'm moving them all into the ground because I've gotten tired of fiddling with them. Best of luck :o) Dan

Mike,
The Arisarum does better for me in pots than in the ground . It can be both too hot and too cold for them during the growing season here.They are summer dormant.

Mine look and grow their best in 6" unglazed clay Azalea pots with pea gravel in the bottom.

Keiko

Thank you both very much for your help. I had been focusing my attention on Amorphophallus for the time being but I am limited to relatively few species because of the size restrictions I am trying to honor. I have Amorphoplallus bulbifer (not quite sure how large this species gets with maturity?) and recently added a wonderful little Amorphophallus obscurus but other than a few other species like Amorphophallus henryi that I noticed in the Plant Delights catalog I am not terribly familiar with the smaller growing species.

I am very happy to hear of your success with both Arisarum and Arisaema in pots. I have been toying with the idea of adding several of these fascinating plants to my collection for the past few years and will surely have to do it now.

Isn't this the plant that is commonly referred to as the "mouse" plant? I would love to get one of these too. I've heard they spread readily. Kind of a cute ground cover. That is, if this is the one you're talking about.

I would like to try the A. bulbifer and paeonifolius as well. I have a konjac tuber to plant this spring (hardy in my zone). Am going to try to "make" the other two hardy here as well. Will have to amend my soil and probably put them in a raised bed for drainage purposes since they are so sensitive to cold moisture. They would have been fine this winter - so dry here we suffered many, many wildfires. Most winters are not this way, though.

Susan

Susan that's the plant, cute isn't it.

I love it, and think I'll order it this spring. Is it a pretty fast grower? It's hardy in the ground in my zone.

Susan

Susan,
The Arisarum rhizomes are cold hardy in the ground here in Dallas but they seem to have a biological clock to grow only in winter and spring. I don't think there is anything you can do to change this. In the ground they will start sprouting during a warm spell from mid-December to mid-January but then be continually frozen back everytime it drops into the mid 20s and just dwindle away.

To get mouse bottom flowers I have to grow them in pots, moving them inside during severe weather. Mine are inside for this weekend's actic blast, but will go back out on the patio next week when lows are back up around 40F.

They flower around Easter and then suddenly go dormant right on schedule early May no matter what the weather is like. BRRR- a miserable weekend in Dallas, but I imagine worse in OKC.

Keiko

Nasty, nasty, nasty in Oklahoma City. Roads bad, schools closed; I did not venture out to work today.

I saw another type of arisarum on another site and wonder if it is easier to grow than the mouse plant. It is A. vulgare, a taller plant (12"), the spathe is green striped white - looks more like a jack than the back end of a mouse. Am wondering if it is less temperamental than the mouse plant?

Susan

Susan,
A. vulgare behaves more like Arum pictum than it's closer relative and makes a better garden plant here.

The years we get heavy rain and a fast cool-down in early October they pop up and start flowering until we get a hard freeze in December. They may also get frozen back in late December to mid-February, but have larger rhizomes than A. proboscideum and recover better.

They can flower sporadically any time it's above freezing from mid-October through March, but go dormant early May like A. proboscideum.

The only downside to these is that they just aren't as cute or humorous as a pot full of mouse bottoms.

Keiko