As our next meeting of the Gulf Hills Garden Club rapidly approaches on 18 September 2014, we have a post submitted from one of our newest members Michael W. Moses.
I have always loved what many traditional gardeners might consider off the wall and sometimes unsightly plants in my garden and one of them is my beloved "Stapelia gigantea"!
I have always loved what many traditional gardeners might consider off the wall and sometimes unsightly plants in my garden and one of them is my beloved "Stapelia gigantea"!
Some call it the starfish cactus, though it is actually a succulent as opposed to a cactus, but the most common name for this plant is the carrion flower.
These plants produce flowers that fool flies into pollinating them, by luring the flies to the blooms with the visual stimuli and the aroma of rotting flesh. Yes, I know, how lovely is that? Well actually the smell part is not very pleasing, but the visual portion creates a most sensational disply for us humans to enjoy.
This easy to grow plant has a very nice looking cactus shaped body that if given the right amount of sun and water will really impress even the most reluctant gardener. Sun and occasional watering in the summer and I always bring it in and place it in a bright, but indirect light source with very little water during the winter months and they have always rewarded me handsomely with a good number of flowers every summer.
This easy to grow plant has a very nice looking cactus shaped body that if given the right amount of sun and water will really impress even the most reluctant gardener. Sun and occasional watering in the summer and I always bring it in and place it in a bright, but indirect light source with very little water during the winter months and they have always rewarded me handsomely with a good number of flowers every summer.
Last year I had a bumper crop of these massive 8 plus inch flowers about every two weeks almost all summer. It only opens one large flower at a time. Each flower lasts a day or two, but it will have three to five or more blooms during each flush of buds.
It has bloomed each year for the last five years for me, depending on weather and such, and has produced at least three crops and some years way more of these intriguing flowers.
To be honest this is the third one of these that I have had over the last 35 years. The first one I purchased lived for over thirty years and was a huge specimen, but it was taken be some type of disease that turned the entire plant to jelly in less than 24 hours. The second one I gave to a friend when I moved to the Gulf Coast a number of years back. My currant one was purchased on a trip over to Mobile AL, and it has done very nicely here. I have produced two very nice plants from it, through cuttings, so far and who knows maybe one of them will be up as a lot at our clubs spring auction. Who knows.
Oh, and one last thing. It does have the bad quality of attracting a few flies when in bloom, but I have never even so much as noticed the slightest odor from this. Maybe I have just been lucky?
For more information about this great plant please check out the Wikipedia entry:
Stapelia and Stapelia gigantea
No comments:
Post a Comment