Hi Supermowglee,
thanks for the great job that you and your coworkers do in growing and displaying plants most of us could never place in our windowsills, greenhouses and gardens. Sadly I never have been to Kew Gardens, but I could make a trip to Stuttgart last year for the great blooming of titan arum. Several years ago I watched a short news-report on TV about the big leaf of a titan arum after the blooming. I think it was in 2000. So I got a hint at the genus of my A. konjac, which had been given to me as "Tränenbaum" ( Trea of tears, because of guttation? ). My interest in arums grew and I began to browse for infromation about Amorphophallus. Four years before in 1996 the gardeners of Botanic Garden Bonn were able to pollinate an A. titanum and received a lot of berries. They distributed them to botanic gardens all over the world, some to Kew as well. They germinated the rest and were able to give tubers to botanic gardens as well. (http://www.botgart.uni-bonn.de/o_samm/amor96.html ; Sorry it is in german only, I could not find an englisch version about harvesting and germinating the seeds. ). Since 12 years I buy an annual ticket of the small botanic garden of Augsburg where I'm living, but regrettably they only display small A. konjacs or A. bulbifer ( ? unlabelled! ) and the botanic garden in München shows big A.konjacs I never could see blooming. But the big leafs are very impressing!
Bye
hermann

Here is a link that might be useful: Die Titanenwurz in Bonn 1996

Here's the English version. Very interesting.

Here is a link that might be useful: English version

Here's a page I found about a self-pollination success in 1999/2000 at Huntington Botanical Gardens (http://www.huntington.org/BotanicalDiv/TitanSeed.htm). At Fairchild, I see mentions of collecting pollen but don't see anything about what's done with it.

Yes, I grow titans from time to time in the UK and have had several flower. Poor neighbours!

I have grown home pollinated seeds from mine in the UK.

The amatures are beating Kew and Eden Project here!

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:382367}}

By the way, mine flowered at just 7 years old!

Rubbleshop,
That gives me hope and comfort that my 18 month old seedlings will thrive into the future. Do you have any culture suggestions or techniques the have enabled you to keep your titans thriving as well as get yours to flower in just 7 years? I'd love to add to the culture strategies I'm already using. Thanks.

Actually I found them very easy. Firstly I grow the highland version as there are ones which come form the cooler mountain regions and ones which orgininate from the hotter lowland areas of Sumatra. Best to start with seeds from the mountain region ones as they are a subspecies which are very much more tolerant of neglect and cold.

Secondly, start from seed. If you start from corms collected from the wild in Sumatra, they come complete with nematodes inside the corms. These root nematodes have two effects:-

1). They slow down the growth so they wont flower until they are 9 years old or more.

2). They weaken the plant so it produces 1 flower, then dies.

Nematode free plants do NOT die after flowering and will re-flower every 2 or 3 years.

Lastly, keep above 10 degrees C (50F). Sure they survive lower - they even take a light frost, but all time below 10C is lost growing time. Growing stops at around 10C and restarts above that. So if you have 4 month winters below 10 degrees C, it will be nearly 10 year before you get a flower.

I grow mine in a peat based compost called "miracle grow" and use "miracle grow" fertiliser. It is high nitrogen and would culture fungi which kill many plants at the slightest overwatering or cold, but titans are really hardy against fungus attack, so the fact that this fertizer is fungus utopia does not matter unless your plants are already deseased by nematodes.

Hi Rubbleshop,
Well done on your Titans!! I've been to your homepage and it seems you have a great climate for growing sub-tropicals. I could'nt see any photos of your Titans in flower though? Perhaps you could post some...
Have you tried using the new peat-free composts on the market? They are made from coir(coconut-fibre) and are a much more sustainable option. Once again, well done and congrats! (he says between clenched teeth)

Yes, I live in the bottom of an 85ft deep gorge caused by the collapse of a cave roof of a large underground river (some 6 billion years or so back). Since then, Dartmoor was formed diverting the river, so I am in a very sheltered ex-riverbed running east-west. No TV signal down here even!There are no south or north winds here, just east and west. Additionally the east end opens to the sea, so the warm air from the gulf stream channels up the valley/gorge. Despite that I sometimes have mild frosts in the front garden, but with the help of the 6ft wall round my back garden, I have no frosts at all in the back ever, so it really is a bizarre microclimate down here - shorter day length, but tropical plants don't mind that.

Yes, I still have a lot of bizarre things like Welwitschia Mirabilis, to post on my website too, but will prioritise the titans, hopefully this weekend.

I appreciate that the non peat options are more environmentally friendly, but so far no one has put enough research into producing one which gives the growing results miracle grow gives. Pity, as I bet it would be simple for the makers of miracle grow peat (who already know exactly what they add to their peat) to bring out such a product, but alas, they don't seem interested in doing so.