Rob-Rah

I would defer planting the seed until September. The cool nights are one of the triggers for successful germination.....

I'd like to hear any input to this too, as I have also acquired some seed this year. I intend to sow it in late September, after a soak in both GA3 and smoke water. I'm assuming it will respond to cooler nights in autumn and a high level of water around the pot. If I am lucky enough and some do germinate, I'm not at all sure how to get tiny plants safely into their first dormancy though.

Isn't P. gigantea the only ping with the glands on the leaves; undersides too?

Nice! Mine's looking a bit yellowish at the moment and a bit less lush than it might... probably the heat.

Just don't let the pot share the tray with other CPs which will object to the calcium leeching out into the traywater.

A bit of feedback...... a few plants are in the greenhouse in various soils and aspects. One is in an internal north-west household windowsill under a bell-cloche with ventilation, and stood in a small amount of water in a perlite-based soil, and in a small, 3 inch, regular-dimensioned pot. That plant indoors has not been subjected to very high temperatures. However, it is doing by far the worst and may now be almost dead after 2 weeks. I think this must be lack of light, or possibly lack of airflow under its cloche. I'm going to move it into the greenhouse shortly to see if it prefers it there. The other plants are in the greenhouse on the tray system, which has been over 30C most days since they have been in there - we are having a heatwave. They all get very good light and the vents and door have been open as much as possible, and are in a few different soil mixes, all very open, and all in long pots. Two are not thriving but are not dying - just sort of sitting there grumpy. The third is growing. The only difference for that third one is that it is in a long clay pot with no draining hole (the idea is that the clay will percolate enough water from the tray to keep the soil moist while never getting wet) and has a little more dappled shade, especially on its pot. I think from this that cool roots may be useful for the plant - the clay wicks water away and cools the roots via evaporation.. I will feed back any more brainwaves I have based on what I see from these plants over time. (It could all just be random based on varying levels of root discomfort during shipping and transplanting!)

On the purity issue.... I'm not sold on ultra pure on a regular basis. The plants cope with rotting vegetation around them in the wild and some degree of dissolved salts in the surface water. Surely *some* minerals are essential for the plants. It's only certain chemicals they have no tolerance to. However, we're not usually growing in inorganic media so maybe it's OK.

New RO unit now hooked up. TDS around 2-5. Super. Filling up my water butts now. :)

I did look into just purchasing 1000 L deionised water industrially in a big tank - a few hundred quid (but you get to sell the tank which is worth quite a bit).

It's being returned. Flow rate is all spot on and nothing is going wrong in terms of the mechanics, the unit is simply not filtering. I'll buy another one. This is very annoying. Thank god I bought a TDS meter......

My new RO unit was run and now tested the output with a TDS meter..... 150 ppm. That's no use. The last few litres of rainwater I have is at 50 ppm. I don't have much time left to sort this **** out!

Well, I've had my plants a few days now, tried out in various locations, pots, soils, sun-exposures, moisture, etc. Could it have been a worse time in the last few years to try to coddle a plant which is not going to like the heat? So far none have collapsed at least.

I've got a cheap RO unit to hook up this weekend. The forecast is still no rain for the foreseeable future. I'll see how it goes, though I'm wondering how best to use the huge volume of waste water I am going to get. I am imagining a run of loose guttering pieces on the floor stretching along the garden to various flowerbeds! The wet-membrane thing......... as this water is not for human consumption, would there be any problem in just storing the membrane in a jar of water, while the unit is not in use? We don't care about bacterial growth for our plants..... or do we?

What is the cheapest effective option for rendering tapwater OK? RO units/Distiller? I have been on the edge of water supply for the CPs more often than I like, but have managed to keep afloat just about. Obviously we're not talking plumbed-in systems or push kitchen fittings, but what are the options and the sorts of prices?

Just how hot is "heat"? Are we talking 23C or 30+C? I saw it doesn't grow terribly higher than Utric nelumbifolia and U. reniformis, neither of which are ultra-picky about heat, and can take quite a high degree of cold.