Stylidium as garden plants

[BarryRice]

Hey Folks,

Encouraged by Doug Darnowski's book on Stylidium, I've been experimenting with outdoor cultivation of the plants here in the central valley of California.

I've been growing three species---Stylidium graminifolium, S. brunonianum, and S. adnatum---outside for nearly a year now and they're still alive. In fact, the S. graminifolium is flowering and putting on a great show. The S. brunonianum is very slow, but it has also just produced an inflorescence. The S. adnatum is doing marvelously, but still only in the vegetative state.

I'll start trying to propagate these guys shortly, but for now they are doing well.

Interestingly, I have them in a standard CP mix (50/50 sand/peat), which apparently is protecting them from the hard-as-rocks hose water I'm giving them. The water is so nasty I won't drink it.

Anyone else growing these plants? I'm a complete newbie with them and am pretty much just winging it...

Barry

[marcelvw]

Hello,

I hope I will be in a few weeks
I have sowed my S. graminifolium seeds one week ago.

Marcel

[kitkor]

I'm a newbie, too, and have attempted to grow these with some success. Year-round out-door cultivation in Ohio is a bit too cold for them, so they're slowly growing indoors. I did just get some year-old unstratified, untreated (no smoke treatment) S. graminifolium seed to germinate in a greenhouse at work. They took a little longer (about 4 weeks) and germination rate was low, but it was still viable.

I've also noticed that my S. debile started to lose its vigor after flowering. Doug Darnowski has suggested that it may need a bit of dilute fertilizer after spending so much energy on flowering. Haven't tried it yet...

Good luck with your plants, Barry. Any plans to hybridize the two flowering species? Hybrids haven't been reported on much in this genus and not many people have tried.