Roscoea

[Paul]

Mark,

You have a point, and yet I enjoy a good Roscoea flowering -I'm willing to accept the flopping in exchange. It flowers at a time of year, midsummer, when it seems everything else is done, not started yet, or is taking a break.  Growing a few sedges or grasses nearby would give you something to tuck this flopping foliage behind, but this is not a style of gardening everyone goes for.  Personally I find this also works for bulb foliage once it's seen better days.  Have you tried Roscoea capitata?  I have had it several years in western Pennsylvania, It just might do okay where you are.  I also have Roscoea x beesiana, which I find squinny as well -larger than tibetica but still not adequate in the flower to foliage proportion.  It was sold to me many years ago as capitata but has been a disappointment.  The flopping outweighs the flowering in this case. 

One thing I've never done successfully is winter over any Roscoea seedlings.  They germinate very willingly, but whether in a cold frame or in a refrigerator, they've always rotted away by spring.  I'll try the scratching-in technique and see how that works.

[McDonough]

Mark,

You have a point, and yet I enjoy a good Roscoea flowering -I'm willing to accept the flopping in exchange. It flowers at a time of year, midsummer, when it seems everything else is done, not started yet, or is taking a break.  Growing a few sedges or grasses nearby would give you something to tuck this flopping foliage behind, but this is not a style of gardening everyone goes for.  Personally I find this also works for bulb foliage once it's seen better days.  Have you tried Roscoea capitata?  I have had it several years in western Pennsylvania, It just might do okay where you are.  I also have Roscoea x beesiana, which I find squinny as well -larger than tibetica but still not adequate in the flower to foliage proportion.  It was sold to me many years ago as capitata but has been a disappointment.  The flopping outweighs the flowering in this case. 

One thing I've never done successfully is winter over any Roscoea seedlings.  They germinate very willingly, but whether in a cold frame or in a refrigerator, they've always rotted away by spring.  I'll try the scratching-in technique and see how that works.

Hi Paul,  well I did have a tremendous flowering on R. cautleyoides in 2009 to save it from being thrown out   Yes indeed, it emerges very late, then flowers late... it is welcome for its flowering, but not the *aftermath*.  I think you are right to suggest interplanting with sedges, as that might do the trick of blending in the flopping foliage; I shall consider the siting possibilities.

I haven't tried other species, such as R. capitata, although at a local NARGS meeting this past fall, I bought R. auriculata and R. australis, to give them a try (both seemed to be small ones), and I sowed seed of R. yunnanensis (none germinated yet), so I maintain an open mind.

Regarding seedlings of R. cautleyoides, do try the "sow-in-situ" methodology, this is working beyond my wildest imagination for so many plant species, and its a salvation for the "working man or woman" who doesn't have time to attend to small pots of seedlings.

I upload yet another photo of bad flopping foliage in 2007, and beside it you can see lots of seedlings from "in situ" seed sowing, and a second photo showing those seedlings.  I have sown seed in situ these last three years, and they always come up each year and are persistent, so I recomment that technique.

[McDonough]

Roscoea cautleyoides has just emerged, almost two weeks earlier than normal, and that is to say, it is a very late emerging plant.  The seedlings that grow nearby, are always even later to emerge.  In the second photo, a top view, the shoots look rather comical, like little pipes.

[McDonough]

I forgot to show what the floral show looked like this year; pretty good but not as good as in 2009.  I include a second photo showing the glorious fall foliage one may expect in the coming months

[McDonough]

And a photo of a younger plant taken in Peter George's garden.  One has to admit, the plants are mighty photogenic in flower.