Dioscorea elephantipes

[Ospreywatcher]

Awakening after short summer break, now 4.5" diameter, £1 coin to show scale.

35358748644_9a89a05054_z.jpg (118.87 KiB) Viewed 3099 times

[iann]

Do you force it into growth with watering, or just wait for it to start on its own?

[Ospreywatcher]

To stop the roots drying out I just give the compost an occasional squirt of water from a spray during the dormant period but I don't deliberately water to encourage the plant to start growing again.

[Eric Williams]

Very nice colourations on your plant OW. I like it. Cheers

[Ospreywatcher]

Thanks Eric, although the caudex is raised I do cover it with black plastic in bright sunshine to avoid it bleaching. Seems to work and the vine is still getting sunlight.

[Keith H]

Do you force it into growth with watering, or just wait for it to start on its own?

Mine showed signs of sprouting new vines last week which I took as an indication that it was time to resume watering.
When they do start you can almost see the vines growing they are that quick.

[Ospreywatcher]

They certainly are Keith but once they reach a certain length they seem to stop growing and stay the same for several months. Mine doesn't exceed around 6 feet but can reach that in a few weeks.

[ralphrmartin]

Wow, seems very early for them to be leafing up. Mine is very much a winter grower, persisting until late spring. I've just repotted it, so we will see what happens next...

[Ospreywatcher]

I think this is the earliest mine has woken, usually it's later in August.

[Terry S.]

I have three plants which have about 15cm cudeces and were raised years ago, but all from different sources. They all wake up at different times and in the same sequence each year. The first one already has flowering vine, the second is just starting to grow and the third is still dormant. I start watering each one when I first see the new growth. All three plants are winter-growing and the vines all die off at about the same time as the greenhouse warms up in spring. In spite of claims made in the Millennium Seed Bank publicity hand-outs, the species is still quite widespread in the wild and grows in a number of different climates within the western part of South Africa. This would account for there being different ecotypes with different growing regimes.