Desmanthus illinois

[eem]

Hi,

Was wondering if it is possible to cut off some of the roots of a desmanthus illinois plant without killing the whole plant?

Cheers

[planthelper]

wau, you got a very rare plant, considering you are in oz.

most of us would have never owned a desmanthus illinois, but unless the whole root system get's disturbed it ought to be fine to take 1/3 of it's roots or better less.

does this plant show signs of dormancy over the cold/dry periodes?

if i would take roots of a plant, i would trimm the above ground growth aswell in proportion, to compensate for the loss of roots.

i would like to hear more about your plant eem, this is very interressting,

i put up my hand for any seed of this plant!

[Chiral]

I've had seed in the past PH ...the first batch I had none germinated then I received some more from someone else and now I have 2 plants... one is about 4inches tall and the other is about 6 inches and both are doing fine...one is in a pot and the other in the ground...pretty fast growers and I expect them to really take off over summer, but they are still happy and healthy in this cold...I think they are very cold tolerant from memory.

H.

[kindness]

Mine have never done very well.

I've germinated a number of them now and they never seem to grow very happily. What is the soil like that you have yours in Hunab?

[Chiral]

Mine have never done very well.

I've germinated a number of them now and they never seem to grow very happily. What is the soil like that you have yours in Hunab?

Soil is nothing fancy at all it's just dug out garden soil ...I did though about a year or so ago put a lot of effort into conditioning all the soil in my yard and upturned all the beds and tossed in things like garden charcoal, chicken poo pellets, mulch, coarse sand and lots of beautiful home made compost prom a pile I had been making for about a year from food scraps and old leaves and twigs, coffee etc....so yeah the 2 plants live in the same soil only one is in a pot and the other in the ground...be interesting to see how they fare when spring comes through again as they seem to have slowed a lot recently but are still quite happy.

H.

Edited May 29, 2009 by Hunab Ku

[planthelper]

Mine have never done very well.

I've germinated a number of them now and they never seem to grow very happily. What is the soil like that you have yours in Hunab?

it's said to like disturbed soil, like it springs up after earthworks and so on.

maybe your soil is too (sort of) rich?

i guess it could be called a pioneer plant, and they are sometimes like that, try to grow them well, you will fail, just throw the seed onto bare ground and they will grow??

[Chiral]

it's said to like disturbed soil, like it springs up after earthworks and so on.

maybe your soil is too (sort of) rich?

i guess it could be called a pioneer plant, and they are sometimes like that, try to grow them well, you will fail, just throw the seed onto bare ground and they will grow??

that's exactly how I got mine to germinate actually just chucked em in the ground and whammo...the first batch I fussed around with water soaking etc and they all failed and dampened off.

H.

[GingaNinja]

Are you talking about Desmanthus illinoensis ?

this one grew very easy for me in NSW. I had it on the edge of a vege garden.

Seeded like crazy, although it is no more. Should still have some seeds around.

PH why do you think its so rare? Its often in free trade thread from memory

[mutant]

I don't know why, but I suspect / sense / have read that this plat might do better given the xerophytic approach [related thread here]

Sow late in spring or early in summer, preferably in earth, then abandon and/or water sparingly

[kindness]

Mine are in pots in really well draining soil. Perhaps they need a bit more organic matter that 'clumps' to be happier. Might re pot them, I'd kinda given up on them but this thread might have saved their little lives.

They do seem extremely hardy however - I certainly haven't over-tended them.

Thanks for thoughts all

[kenny]

I scored a bunch of illenois seed on here a while back and had about 99% germ rate with no deaths so far. Most are growing out in the shed quite happily. They are only showing their 3rd set of leaves though, so still very young. I also have 2 growing under some 38w and they seem slightly healthier. Cant wait till spring so I can watch them take off

If there are no issues posting these seeds OS I can send you some planthelper. Otherwise check sab/herbalistics because I'm sure I saw them on one of these sites recently.

As for the original question, no idea. I can only guess that if the tree was old enough it would be able to withstand a certain amount of root loss. They regrow branches after all.

[eem]

wau, you got a very rare plant, considering you are in oz.

most of us would have never owned a desmanthus illinois, but unless the whole root system get's disturbed it ought to be fine to take 1/3 of it's roots or better less.

does this plant show signs of dormancy over the cold/dry periodes?

if i would take roots of a plant, i would trimm the above ground growth aswell in proportion, to compensate for the loss of roots.

i would like to hear more about your plant eem, this is very interressting,

i put up my hand for any seed of this plant!

Yes, I meant desmanthus llinoensis.

Sorry planthelper but I haven't got any seeds from them yet. They should be easy to enough to order or find tho.

They were pretty easy to grow, I put them in hot water overnight then planted them once they had swollen.

Though no more than one seedling would sprout succesfully in any one pot. I also planted them pretty late both times and it was fine except that a couple didn't last their first winter.

[mutant]

Germination was really good for me as well - getting the plants to grow was the difficult part, especialy as spidermites seemed to like it a lot!