Self-heading ???

Could someone explain self-heading to me please. I keep seeing it in reference to philodendrons. Best explaination gets to go in Botanary ....Waahoooo

Thanks Neil

My Latest Vireya Bloom

I don't think I can give you a great definition, but selfheading refers to the habit more or less. Selfheading plants do not have continuous, unregulated growth of the main stem; example would be phliodendrons that grow like vines (not selfheading) and those that do not grow like a vine and have leaves close together are selfheading.

does that help?

Uh I bet Brian knows.

Neil, your vireya is so-o-o pretty. You might remember that I got one a few months ago. It's been in its original 4" pot and not it's time to repot since I've got a good bit of new growth. Since I'm suffering from old brain and can't remember (LOL), please tell me what I should do with the soil, etc. in potting it up to a larger pot. I've got it in mostly shade since I noticed some of the new growth seemed a bit bothered by hot sun. I thought they could take a bit more sun???? Thanks for your help.
Barbara

Hello again Barbara
The first thing to remember is, they have to have free flow of water ( think orchid) . They dont want wet feet , lots of air circulation.
Don't pot it up too much, in fact mine have never been potted up and they seem quite happy, If you have not had a bloom yet I would wait untill it blooms at least once , otherwise all its energy will be put back into filling the pot with roots.

A good mix to use if you do want to pot up is 1/3 pine bark 1/3 perlite ( I use turface)
and one third coarse peat ( never the fine stuff) look in the orchid section of HD for this.

I lost three this spring to the sun but remember they do need at least 3- 4 hours of early morning sun to bloom.

Hope this helps Neil

WOW! That's gorgeous! Now you've got me really excited. If you lost 3, how many did you have? I'll take your advice and let you know how it goes. It was getting filtered sun till about 2:00, but, obviosly, it wasn't filtered enough if it got a tiny bit of burn on the immature leaves.

It's only about 8"-9" so I'm sure it will be some time before it might bloom. I'll keep it in it's 4" pot till it does. What fertilizer do you use? I've given it Messenger and I give it a little Miracle Gro when I hit everything else.

Thanks again, Neil, so much!
B

This message was edited Jul 6, 2006 9:55 PM

Barbara
Be very carefull with fertalizer and your vireya, they have very fine roots and burn easily.
You may want to put them on a different timetable from your other plants, 2-3 times a year with a slow release formula that you can get at HD for Azalias and Rhodos. I have used a quater strength Rhododendron liquid fertalizer in a spray bottle and they seem to respond to that especially in the winter when the humidity is low.

You know I only post my best pics, they dont always look that good. LOL
Neil

April
How rude of me, Im sorry. Thank you for the info. That explains it very well. I kept going to dead heading and it wasn't making sense to me. Love your recent shopping spree results.

No problem, I had to look it up because I was getting it confused w/ self cleaning.