Philodendron 'Xanadu'

Philodendron 'Xanadu'
Philodendron

This is the same plant in my image posted in October of 2003. After being in a large pot for a number of years it had become too heavy to handle or move around, so it was planted in ground mid-summer 2004. It is doing well and doesn't seem to be bothered by our low of about 37F so far this winter.

Candy, she is a beauty. It must have been the best choice for a place to dig her in.

Just beautifull!!!!!!! Did you plant it in your SF home, or your new one? Annie

Hiya Brugie.......best choice was about the only bare spot available at the time, so it was a case of DO or die for Xanadu!

LOL Annie! You made me laugh out loud....that's a good thing!

It's planted here at our current home and the reason I laughed was because it would have been lunch & munch by the cattle on the new land. We were out over the weekend staking the house to make sure of the positioning and used that bright plastic flourescent tape to outline the house on the stakes. The cattle dragged it all around and chewed it to pieces over the next couple of days.

We won't be able to do anything until it is graded after April 15th and before planting anything we'll have to string barbed wire fencing around the portion that isn't yet fenced. I can't wait to see two city slickers stringing 4 strands of barbed wire each 1000 feet long.

This thing is growing very well and I should be able to make at least a half a dozen good size plants out of it when I dig and cut it up. (I've done this with other large philos, spider plants, ferns in the past. Requires one very large sharp knife or machete to hack it into sections and then just plunk them in the ground.)

Now you're making me laugh out loud, LOL LOL, very large machete, LOL, I bet you're very anxious to move, and yes, I can picture it now, 2 city slickers putting up a barbed wire fence!!!!! You be very careful now, LOL, Annie

I love that you have "before and after" shots of this gorgeous plant. :) I'm looking for shade plants but we've got lots of rabbits and ground squirrels to fend off and I'm guessing this would be far too tasty a treat.

Jen (who is thankful to not have to worry about cattle - but is laughing picturing them draped in fourescent tape!)

Jen we have ground squirrels and lots of pocket gophers. Neither of these groups of ravenous marauders has as yet bothered my philos.....they prefer the pricey small expensive stuff. :-)

Well then I'll keep my eyes open for one. I think one would be great in my courtyard but that bit about needing "regular feeding" may doom it!

Put a couple of those tabs in the bottom of the hole, you won't have to think about it for a year or so as far as feeding it......see if you like the plant and its progress. When all else fails, use a couple of those fat plant fetilizer stakes that you pound into the ground each year and that should be sufficient. :-)

Hey, I could handle that! Thanks!

Those are great and so easy! True, just pound it in and forget about it for a long time! Annie

Unfortunately, there is a great deal of bad information on the internet regarding Philodendron xanadu. I just finished doing a complete update on the relatively new species known as Philodendron xanadu. Many people know it as a hybrid and it is exclusively sold as Philodendron 'Xanadu'. Quite a bit of recent information has come to light regarding the published species P. xanadu. My friends Julius Boos and botanist Dr. Tom Croat of the Missouri Botanical Garden joined with botanist Dr. Simon Mayo of the Royal Botanical Garden Kew to describe the species in 2002. The species was first published in the International Aroid Society journal Aroideana.

Julius has just helped me rewrite my entire page on the species. All the information now posted is up to date and disputes quite a bit of information that can be found on the internet. One major error on the internet is the species was first found in Australia. That is botanically impossible since the neotropical genus Philodendron is found from Mexico, the West Indies, and south through Central America into Colombia, Venezuela, the Guiana Shield, Brazil and in Ecuador and Peru. The genus is primarily found east of the Andes Mountains.