Aloha Lilly All Floppy

Discussion in 'Indoor and Greenhouse Plants' started by pirhan, Oct 14, 2012.

  1. pirhan

    pirhan Active Member

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    It gets plenty of indirect sunlight in a warm loft. I rescued it last year - it was abandoned outside and I took it in just before frost. It flopped last year, but did produce a small bloom. I have since moved to from that dark place to the warm sunny loft. It gets Dutch Treat's seaweed fertilizer. Any ideas what's going on?


    It looks like the image is sideways, even though I've rotated it and uploaded it again. Sorry, but just think of it as Sunday neck exercises!
     

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  2. mrsubjunctive

    mrsubjunctive Active Member

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    It sure doesn't look like a plant that's getting enough light.

    Google tells me "aloha lily" means Eucomis cvv. (Is this the plant you're talking about?), which I haven't ever tried to grow, but some of the websites that come up suggest that they should be planted in full sun or part shade outdoors. If that's good advice, indirect indoor Canadian sun is not going to be anywhere close to adequate.
     
  3. pirhan

    pirhan Active Member

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    Yes, that's the plant. The tag said full sun to partial shade, so that's what I've given it. It never occurred to me that I'm in Canada and Canadian sunlight does not equal the sunlight found in Africa. Eucomis at Wikipedia.

    I'll put it back to where it'll receive full sun. Well, it will hopefully get full sun next week when it stops raining.

    Anything else I can do for it? Or just hope for a sunny winter?
     
  4. mrsubjunctive

    mrsubjunctive Active Member

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    The bigger difference is that indoor full sun is much, much less intense than outdoor full sun: among other things, outdoor full sun is coming from every direction at once, and full sun in a house or apartment will usually only come from the side with the window. Plus some light gets reflected off the glass, the glass could be dirty, there might be objects outside blocking the light, etc.

    The Canada / Africa thing doesn't help, though, obviously.

    Hoping for a sunny winter can't hurt anything, but if space, interest, and budget permit, you could also consider supplementing with artificial light.

    Alternately, if Eucomis is one of the bulb plants that drops leaves and goes dormant for part of the year, you could maybe just let it go dormant, and try to revive it in the spring. I don't know if it's one of the plants that could do that, though. (Possibly someone with Eucomis experience will jump into the conversation at this point and tell us?)
     
  5. pirhan

    pirhan Active Member

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    I think it's off kilter as it was left outside until late October, had very low temperatures (no frost I think) and I took it and brought it home. It had died back and then gave me some sad leaves and a little flower a few months later and then died back again and then just broke dormancy about two months ago.

    I have a "sunlight" bulb that I bought from Canadian Tire. It was about $10 and it was spiraled glass. I can't find it on the Canadian Tire website and I bought it a while ago so I can't remember the company name. Either I didn't use it right or it didn't work as I didn't notice any difference in the growth of my plants. I have plenty of room, so if you or someone else has a good valued sunlight light bulb (possibly with a timer) I'd be game for that. The small flower it produced last year was very fragrant and it's the only plant I have that blooms.
     
  6. saltcedar

    saltcedar Rising Contributor 10 Years

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    "It never occurred to me that I'm in Canada and Canadian sunlight does not equal the sunlight found in Africa."

    That may explain all the Bar-B-Cued Canadian (and other northern) Snow Birds we see in Florida and Texas! ;-)
     
  7. pirhan

    pirhan Active Member

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    Haha!

    I bought a timer ($8.99 from Home Hardware) and have set up the light for it. I have it set to turn on at 8am and the off at 8pm. I'll monitor it and hopefully it'll get that dark vibrant green colour I see in photos. (Oh, and start growing upright!)

    Thanks for all the help. :)
     

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