On Sat, 05 Apr 2003 09:00:45 +0100, Nick Harrison
wrote:

~On Sat, 5 Apr 2003 08:41:58 +0100, "K" wrote:
~
~
~"Nick Harrison" wrote in message
. ..
~: Hi,
~: I've a couple of these grown from seed now 7 and 8 years old.
~: I believe these like to be pot bound but now the huge tangled mass of
~: tuberous roots leaves hardly any room for soil in the 25litre pots.
~: They are flowering at the moment (or about to) but I thought I'd try
~: and divide them later in the season.
~: Has anyone done this? Do you try and prise the roots apart or cut
~: through them with a bread kinife or something? Looking at he leaves
~: there is an obvious point of division but when I tried repotting last
~: year the roots were entangled but quite fragile.
~: Any suggestions?
~: Regards,
~: Nick
~: Nick Harrison Lancaster UK
~
~Can't answer your question, Nick, but wondered if this is their first year
~to flower as I was told - on this group - that they take about 7 yrs. Mine
~are about 3 yrs old, which reminds me I must repot them soon.
~
~K
~
~Hi,
~Thinking about it, you're probably right about year of flowering
~although I think mine were sooner, year 5/6. Anyway it's not the first
~year of flowering more like the fifth/sixth year so my memory is
~playing its tricks (becoming more frequent). They're probably more
~like 11/12 years old.
~I love them. One flowers more than the other 2 or 3 flowers instead of
~1. I vaguely remember some discussion on the group last year about the
~need/appropriateness of dividing but not how to do it. The root system
~is amazing but daunting. I imagine it will set the plants back in the
~short term but as I said there's barely room for soil in the pots. I
~have sort of repotted them in the same size pots a couple of times in
~the last four years and top dressed them in the intevening years but
~there is so little soil the water runs straight through when I water
~them.
~
Hi Nick
Glad to hear they do get to flowering eventually. I have one that's now 20
months old, has only one heart and each leaf is bigger than the previous.
The last one was about 9" long and I keep on wondering what is the final
size! But at 2 months to grow each leaf it's a painfully slow process!
It's currently in an 8" pot and a warm conservatory. I once read too that
they are next to impossible to germinate and then impossible to kill : I
suspect this is because of the roots!
Anyway, I read a few months back in Amateur Gardening that you are best
doing the back to back garden fork trick to split them - Anne Swithinbank
did just that and wrote about it in her column. I may well still have it
(being a hoarder). Watch this thread as I don't know how long it will take
to find!

best wishes,

--
jane

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone,
you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
Mark Twain

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