My colocasia Fontanesii

[Yorkshire Kris]

That is excellent Kris! does the colocasia produced new plants and the flowering one die once finished or does it still live on and the flower just eventually gets cut off once flowering has finished? By your description of the smell, i am looking forward to that!

I only noticed the smell so much this year because the plant was in the house. It is gorgeous though, but a bit overpowering like lillies.

Since the flower in October it has produced a couple of new leaves as the plant continues to grow. I think this a difference between colocasia and alocasia.

[Dave Brown]

The stem doesn't die San, but they don't produce the largest leaves when flowering. I generally discourage flowering with the use of high nitrogen feed. They flower on me in around the 3rd year

[sanatic1234]

Thanks for the the information lads, I think i would prefer larger leafs opposed to the flower, although saying that i would like to smell that scent from the flower.

[Yorkshire Kris]

Thanks for the the information lads, I think i would prefer larger leafs opposed to the flower, although saying that i would like to smell that scent from the flower.

Have the best of both worlds, feed heavily in summer for big leaves then reduce in autumn to get the odd flower.

I still got decent sized leaves this year off this plant. Shame the Red Spider Mite gave all the others such a hard time.

[sanatic1234]

You see i didn't know you could do that kris, so yes i will try that. God i love this forum.

[Scott Radford]

All I do with some 99% of all my Colocasia is sit them in the pond and let the fish and water do the food and drink for them. I have pictures of them I think I've shown on here, where they all grow quite nicely. I do think I've reached maybe saturation point with the numbers of plants to fish (food) hence I will not put so many in next year.

For me I have found that Colocasia will generally flower in year 3. But some such as pink stem will reward you by flowering in the second year if you get it through the winter. the only ones I have yet seen flower are pink stem, dark stem (burgundy), fontanessii and illustris.

On flowering, as has been said, the plant does not die and in fact you can actually tell when your plant is going to flower. Normally Colocasia produce successive leaves from the last petiole to emerge previously. When they are readying to flower, you can see a distinct move to having two separate growing points. This is because the main one will still produce leaves as before and the secondary one will produce flowers. These don't emerge from successively new growth like the leaves though, but more as a procession from the one petiole that it sends up for them to emerge from.

Fontanessii yellow flowers do look fantastic alongside the dark plant and smell of papaya

[Scott Radford]

One brilliant footnote to this is I am off to Lanzarote on Christmas day for a week and while there I will seek to bring back a Colocasia I have ever known to grow in one place there. I feel at last I have the capability to keep it alive - which I didn't manage in 2005 when I went before