Hardy Tropicals UK

just thinking about gunnera manicata in a regula border ,not by a pond or stream.

they need lots of water to get to the gaint sizes we all want so i had an idea.

if you burried a bucket a foot or two underneath the gunnera would that provide the roots with a little reservoir so it wouldnt need to be in a bog garden?

i have read soil will sour if kept wet ,eg planting gunnera by a pond instead of by a moving stream so i also thought the bucket should be full of perlite

It might work. I tried planting mine in a pond liner dug deep underneath it with forked holes in the liner. In the hot spells it still struggled. You need to absolutely drench it in warmer weather if its not got full time access to water.

I planted two young ones last spring In the flower beds and the grew to 2ft tall, I will see if I can find a pic.

The bucket method is how I've kept one alive at my nephews place. It does help but as Tom said these things need serious watering to look their best

Im planting mine in a similar way, but potted.

Basically im going to bury a biggish tub, stand a few bricks in the bottom and part fill with water. then place another tub (same size) into the sunken one and stand on the bricks, this 2nd tub will have loads of holes drilled into the bottom.
When i pot the gunnera up i will place a length of hose alongside it, so i can easily refill the underground tub when needed. you could even just lift the one tub out the other if needed.
As its still contained my threory is it will not get stupidly big and overtake the garden. But the roots will eventually find the water and should be happy enough.

I bought two tubs from homebase, the ones you need to drill, should be perfect for the job.

Not 100% sure it will work, but was gonna give it a go.

A bucket won't hold anything like enough water to keep it going through a long dry spell. Bury a swimming pool, and it would work.

Ours has been in the ground by a pond(liner) for 10 yrs with not much watering,i didnt buy a hose pipe till 2yrs ago when i finally got into serious gardening one of the crowns?(not sure what theyre called) tends to grow and reaches into the pond but thats usually by the end of summer and not knowing much about gunnera wonders if thats helps as a water source? can they drink/absorb that way?

Just hose it down twice per day?

hi,

These are highly invasive weeds here in the west of ireland,invading wet scrubland especially near the coast.Trust me these plants will grow in any ground thats not too dry or sandy reaching 8-10ft very quickly and producing millions of seeds.They are also very hard to dig up with an aggresive root system.

Westport007 wrote:hi,

These are highly invasive weeds here in the west of ireland,invading wet scrubland especially near the coast.Trust me these plants will grow in any ground thats not too dry or sandy reaching 8-10ft very quickly and producing millions of seeds.They are also very hard to dig up with an aggresive root system.

As has been said we tend to struggle to keep these wet enough, particularly on the eastern side of England. West of Ireland probably has 3 times the rainfall I get here. I lost mine in 2005 towards the end of the 2 year drought with a hose pipe ban.I didn't replace, as too thirsty for my garden.

In a smaller garden bear in mind the leaves are like cardboard and the stems like a rasp. Not easy to push through without losing skin

has anybody on this forum grown them to the sort of sizes you want when you get a gunnera?

all the pictures on here I have seen they look smaller than the rheum palmatum I have in my garden atm.
only in big national gardens do they look big.

I think they will need a lot of food to get big in a pot.

Give them a free root run and plenty of moisture and you'll see how big the leaves get. most potted plants will be smaller

joolz68 wrote:Ours has been in the ground by a pond(liner) for 10 yrs with not much watering

I have a gunnera here and has been in the ground probably about 10 years too, and I know it goes against all that it's supposed to regards watering, but I honestly rarely water mine at all, maybe a couple of times over the Summer period, or if we have had a long spell of hot weather, and mine never seems to suffer without loads of water. Maybe it would be bigger if I did give it loads of water, possibly, but generally gets to shoulder height for me at the height of its growing season, so not as huge as its potential.

I'm not even sure mine in manicata (sp?) I read in a thread where the difference is in the cones/flowers/seed heads, when checking mine I thought it might have been tinctora (sp?) which I think is a smaller gunnera, but still not sure on this one.

Di

any pictures?

Found this one out from.......... looking at other things in the garden, must have been round about late June early Julyish I guess.

By the pond. Di