Anyone else tried Calathea Rufibarba?

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doncasterpalmguy123

Anyone else tried Calathea Rufibarba?

Post by doncasterpalmguy123 »

Ok so i bought my specimen of Calathea Rufibarba from tesco in febuary 2012. They're a beautiful perennial plant native to the steamy, low light rain forests of Brazil. There is little information about them on the internet as they're not one of the most well known or favourite calatheas in the horticultural industry. They make great house plants and are most popular over here and in the states. They usually have a purple/furry underside of the leaf but mine is strange and has a pale green underside (feel special) :lol: The underside is literally like stroking a feather they're that furry. Any way they're apparently not hardy at all and are well suited to about zone 11 icon_thumbdown
However being me i was never going to be impressed with that evaluation of their hardiness since information on them is so sketchy and hard to come by. So last year i had mine planted outside, it survived at least +5 in the spring, however it was in too light a position so the leaves started to burn. So it became a house plant again and has rebounded wonderfully.
Again me being me i was not satisfied. I really wanted to see if i could; through trial and error discover the hardiness of this plant. So as they have beautiful rhizomes i decided to rake a root cutting in the summer. the little thing done great outside under our gardens massive lawsons cypress, no burning as these conifers really do keep all the light out.
My experiment so far has revealed they are at least root hardy. The leaves of the small cutting all died in late november having experienced -2C. Thinking this was the end i inspected the rootball ready for it to go on the compost heap. To my astonishment and joy i found there was live roots on the Rhizome and still are to this day. So my hope is that it shall survive as an annual in the zone 8a climate of doncaster. Dieing off every winter and coming back from the ground in early summer. I HOPE.
Anyway, I've had a good blab now and probably bored you all if you've read this far. But if your interested, check here for updates later in the year to see if it comes back. If it does then the big plant will go under the huge conifer too and hopefully a new hardy tropical annual will be added to the garden and maybe in years to come, if they become more popular plants my experiment may help people with them Regards, Dan. :D :D
doncasterpalmguy123

Re: Anyone else tried Calathea Rufibarba?

Post by doncasterpalmguy123 »

Here is one from the internet with standard purple underside of the leaf.
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call

Re: Anyone else tried Calathea Rufibarba?

Post by call »

sounds promising icon_thumleft
doncasterpalmguy123

Re: Anyone else tried Calathea Rufibarba?

Post by doncasterpalmguy123 »

call wrote:sounds promising icon_thumleft
It best be, I've thought it through quite a lot :lol: and don't want to loose my big plant 8)
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