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In fact, I sorted and potted the rhizomes in the past few weekends while I noticed their sprouts went out quickly after a small flood that accidentally wet their medium because I usually keep the dormant Kohleria in their pots instead of digging them out to avoid additional storage issue ... yes I'm lazy but when I grow too many, I only follow the easiest way that reduces troubles.
A pair of rhizomes with sprouts. :)
I found not each variety of Kohleria produces well-developed rhizomes as usual ... especially the beloved ones. XD But no need to pity too much on these unexpected things. Last year I put extra rhizomes into the ground in order to save efforts of potting all of them. It seems a good strategy because they grow by themselves throughout a year, normally rest in the hot summer and wake up to sprout in the autumn ... unfortunately I don't have any more ground for the rhizomes.
The Kohlerias on the ground are full of energy.
After potting the rhizomes in September of Taipei, the Kohleria grows faster when the temperature drops day by day. More or less than 5 months growth, the plants could be well-developed and ready for the mass flowers. I'm always looking for the most payoff with reasonable efforts, so the timing control is important in terms of getting best flower quality of the year. The flower color of Kohleria is extremely showy if it blooms in the right season. Too cold or too hot can't reveal the true color of Kohleria. So determine your best time for rhizomes !
The great blooming view of Kohleria once a year.
Because all these are grown from seeds, so it's reasonable to see a little bit difference between seedlings. This one has the striped markings overlaying from the flower center to lower petals. A special clone.
This type is most common-known as Sinn. richii "Robson Lopes" which blooms with pale markings inside the flower tube. Both of them are fragrant.
So far so good ... this classic variety grows stably through summer and now it blooms. This should be a up-right grower, just the stem bends while it grows too tall without support.
It seems my planting area is too tough to grow Achimenes, I try again this year and I do not like the growing result so far. The Achimenes plants sometimes seem exhausted because the summer is too hot and the sun light is too strong. Therefore they are not well developed before the bloom season, that's why I see only a few flowers, the worst is some even do not bloom but go into dormancy on the contrary. Well ... at least I tried. :-)
I was shocked when I saw xGloxinistema Pirate's Skywalker grown by Mr. Sua who lives in Singapore. Because his plant is quite huge than I've ever seen. Mr. Sua growed it from a rhizome since last October and these pictures were taken in this April when I visited his place.
In Taiwan, we have cooler autumn and winter, therefore rhizomatous Gesneriads normally go into dormancy when temp. drops. It seems that tropical weather in Singapore leads the growing result in different way and it constantly blooms for a long period. It is good to know this plant does even well in Singapore.
Some so-called tough bloom machines that are hard to be defeated in summer .... even more than 40 degree celsius ...
