flounder wrote:I've joined the mekong owners club
It's the one from Simon in the half price, no postage sale. Apparently it arrived a week or so ago but was part of another order for my nephews father in law. just waiting for my nephew to drop it over......we don't rush things in my family
I would have joined the club too, but I was told by Simon that all the Mekong's ordered for this year had died so had to replace it!
My membership has been withdrawn.
My nephew brought the plant over and it's a sikkimensis red tiger
I'm not bitterly disappointed, just disappointed. Still, I was going to get a red tiger after losing mine
the rhizome nanas seem much worse for growing over here with out cooler summers, taking much longer to get big enough to pup/produce enough rhizome to come back after winter.
noticed something sticking up out of the plants yesterday and realised it was the Mekong giant, looks like it has started to put on a bit of growth just this past week.
If this requires more heat than other nanas, keeping this inside the greenhouse during this heatwave seems to be the trigger it needed. I've not long repotted it despite still having an inadequate root system and now the p-stem is rigid in the pot and roots have already come through the bottom of the pot.
This is now the same size as M. sikkimensis 'Bengal Tiger' which last week was double the size of its neighbour. Will it be twice the tiger next week?
I needed some height in the middle of the back border so I went and got another one..about 7ft tall and stuck it in there. both mine are doing as well as ever but I think everyone is right, they require alot of heat. I think there cold hardiness is unmatched but it takes some hot sun to trigger them. I still have no pups but one I gave away last fall has sent out a pup about 2 ft from the mother plant.
over here I think they need to be much more established than a basjoo to have the same level of hardiness,
basjoo can comeback from the tiniest bit of corm but Mekong doesn't seem to comeback from the same corm so if it hasn't developed a rhizome system it will just die