12 replies to this topic

[planthelper]

hi!

since a while, i'm proud owner of a sab damiana life plant.

i was told that they, suffer a bit over winter, but i haven't had to overwinter them yet, so any cultivation hints would be wellcomed...

here is what i think to have observed so far.

they seem to need quite a lot of direct sunlight, and a very freedraining medium.
3 node cuttings strike well, if conditions are favorable. if you use the pet bottle humidety dome methode, i would leave the cap off, so that there is not too much humidety, but i would use the mister once a day, straight thru the opening of the bottle.

comparing the smoke of the imported damiana herb (from long ago memory), to the "homegrown" damiana, i think the homegrown herb was better.

turnera diffusa is a very lovly plant, and just looking at her fills me with peace, but allthough a petit plant, it can put on display quite a good growth rate.

pic's of my plants are in the making....

Edited by planthelper, 01 July 2012 - 12:35 PM.

[Torsten]

it's one of those plants I constantly have to nibble at when I am near it ;)

we haven't worked this one out. we know it doesn't like NNSW. A few degrees warmer winters and it seems to do much better. It's actually a combination of humidity and cold that does them in I think. Dry and cold seems to be fine.
Being a la nina year it is likely we will get late wet weather, so this year is bound to be bad. we start winter with 100 or more of them and end up with a handful in spring if we're lucky.
This winter some will go into a heated greenhouse to see if they are fine with highhumidity as long as the temp doesn't go below 15C.

[planthelper]

here a close up of my damiana plant, and another pic shows how one can probagate this plant.  damiana close upsized.JPG   24.23K   11 downloads  damiana pet bottle probagation sized.JPG   24.07K   15 downloads

[planthelper]

they are soo cute!  K3094DFC0AE9_1000002damiana resize 60%.JPG   640.88K   32 downloads

[planthelper]

update!

i have aswell lost plants to this mistery die back, over winter.
funny enough though, one died just a few day's ago and it has been warm already since a while here...
i checked the roots of the dead damiana plant, and they looked alright, what happens is, a die back where some shoots of the plant turn brown very fast.
sometime the whole plant turns brown, in a very short time, i got no idea how to combat this, and what makes this worse is that, damiana never suckers or sends out young shoots from it's base.

anyway, i lost maybe around a quater of my plants, which is not to bad.
i have a huntch that this plant doesn't like it to be root bound.
and although this is an ideal bonsai and miniture plant, it rather loves to have a big root space.

so although, they are not easy to over winter, those plants are totaly worth cultivating.
just looking at this plant makes one to "cheer up", as this plant has the most caring and loving nature!

[Bread Filter]

The two I bought died within days of receiving them. It's a shame as I was really looking forward to growing them.

[planthelper]

i started taking cuttings again of this plant, so i could replace them, but i'm sure now they must dislike your cold climat a lot, hehehe.

Edited by planthelper, 19 October 2011 - 10:31 AM.

[Bread Filter]

They were in a warm humid setting. They weren't outside.

Edited by Bread Filter, 19 October 2011 - 10:29 AM.

[planthelper]

it could be some sort of blight, it certainly looks that way.

it would be interressting to know, if plants treated with for example the bordeaux mixture,
will not develope those symptoms.

[Quetzalt]

Hi, I didn't know SAB had them, that's nice. I had a look arround and couldn't find plants nor seeds anywhere for quite a while... A few month ago I managed to get a few seeds (they're similar to Duboisia H.) , treated with GA and managed 4 seedlings in a fluorescent light greenhouse. They're growing slowly but happily it seems, they've been indoors 2m from the window and so far they've not complained. They sure look delicate plants though. I don't know if GA has anything to do with the thin looking stems at the base...
Being a mexican plant I'm sure they won't like humidity, lets see if they'll stand the winter.

[Heretic]

my roses get the same sort of rapid die - back ; brown stems ,etc . I think you are correct in that it is some sort of blight .

[planthelper]

two day's ago, i planted one of my damiana plants into the garden, in the hope that, this plant will flourish, once it has it's feet in the ground.

my wishfull thinking goes as followes.
damina, never re shoots from lower parts of the plant, so maybe planting out leads to, self probagation of the "crawling" shoots.
maybe, planting them out makes them less, prone to blight.
you know, how some plants are realy fuzzy, not to get there pot to hot?
damiana is one of them, i guess, so planting out gives them cooler roots, with less stress.

i noticed, as mentioned already, that they seem to like, to fill out a lot of space with there roots (when i repotted my mother plant, i was amazed how such a miniture plant, managed to get so root bound in the old pot),
and my repotted plant showes very good virgour now...
maybe in nature, they cover a lot of rootspace, and the same is hard to achive in container culture,
so maybe planting them out, is the way to go!

Edited by planthelper, 15 November 2011 - 10:04 AM.

[planthelper]

two day's ago, i planted one of my damiana plants into the garden, in the hope that, this plant will flourish, once it has it's feet in the ground.
so maybe planting them out, is the way to go!

update:
pic #1, blight effected damiana plant, in pot.
 Turnera diffusa#1.JPG   257.18K   19 downloads
pic #2, features, the same clone, planted into the ground, and no sign of blight can be observed!
 Turnera diffusa #2.JPG   596.23K   18 downloads

maybe planting damiana into the ground will not save them from blight, but still, i wanted to share this.

Edited by planthelper, 01 July 2012 - 01:01 PM.