Has anyone in the Houston area had their Clerodendrum quadriloculare bloom before? I have had mine for 4 years and it has yet to bloom. I need to know if I am doing something wrong or if it just doesn't bloom in our area.
Do you find your Clerodendrum incisum blooms in both sun and shade? Which do you think it prefers?
Clerodendrum quadriloculare
Clero incisum does best for me in full shade from May-Sept and full sun the other months. Moist in summer, dryer in winter. It blooms like crazy from April-Dec with monthly week feedings of 8-8-8. I have clero u also--these 2 clero's are enough for me. I'm not that crazy about clero's.
Debbie
I've been told the quadriloculare blooms with the shorter light of the fall.. as a trigger... it's an understory plant in the pacific area jungles...
that said... I've had mine for so many years. perhaps 8.and never a bloom at all... but I have to bring mine inside in the fall .. so as the days are getting shorter.. they goin to light for more time ..not less with the inside house lighting cycle..bright in the day..then light to midnight.. So..now mine winters in the hallway...light 24/7 I'm looking for flowers in the spring.. when I bring it back outside..where it's dark from 9 PM to 5 AM.. shorter...
it's a big healthy tree..well lit and fed... if it didn't have such a lovely leaf..with the dark maroon back on the dark green leaf..it would surely have gone away by now..well perhaps the challenge of getting it to finally bloom also keeps it about..I love the challenge of growing out something unique..and out of context with my area.. and getting it to work magnificently... this does...all except for the flowering
I grow and flower the clerodendrum Thomsoniae... C. Bungei ... C. Ugandense..all favorites for their long flowering...
I'd also like to get a C. Splendens..does anyone have a cutting of this one..or perhaps know where I might buy one..
Thanks..Gordon
Can't give you an answer. We have a hedge of it that has bloomed everyyear but NOT this year (not enough fert?) and another tree of it blooming madly away!!! Do you prune them way back in the spring?
Hetty, is the quadriloculare better behaved than the speciosissimum? I have finally succeeded in getting rid of that thug here and don't want to risk having another that pops up everywhere. .
I realize you were looking for people from TX to comment on why your C. quadriloculare won't bloom, but my thought would be that your temperatures may not be high enough in the wintertime which is when it blooms. I used to have one, and I put it on my covered patio for the winter (and had greenhouse plastic wrapped around the patio, with the cover and the plastic winter temps never got below 35-40 at night) and it bloomed fine, most of the other people I've heard of having luck with it blooming are from zone 10-11. I don't know what zone you're in, but I'm guessing 9 at best, I don't think there's any zone 10 in TX. Unless you're in zone 10, I think you need to give it a little more warmth over the winter to get it to bloom. And if the way you're giving it warmth is by bringing it inside, it may not be getting enough light inside to bloom. I could be way off, this is just a theory I have based on questions that have come up on this plant before and looking at who's had problems getting it to bloom and who's had good luck.
Ardesia--I don't think this one would be a thug for you because it's only hardy to zone 9 according to Plant Files, so I don't think it would make it through your winter.
I am in zone 9b and it does get down to 28 degrees here. I have mine in the ground and it really goes dormant in the winter loosing all of its leaves. Getting cold just may be the problem. It's too late this year but next winter I may try a mini greenhouse around it to see what happens. I know it's a winter bloomer but had hoped it would bloom in the spring here.
I only had mine for that one year (think I forgot to water it some week in the summertime and it died on me!), but it didn't lose its leaves. So if yours is losing its leaves then it probably is too cold for it to bloom when it naturally wants to and it's going dormant instead of blooming. And if the day length is what triggers blooming as Gordon said above, then it probably won't bloom in the spring since day length will be increasing instead of decreasing. I bet if you can keep it warm enough that it doesn't lose its leaves and go dormant on you it'll bloom for you next year.
ecrane3, believe it or not, I am in zone 9. There is a tiny strip that runs along the coast from Florida all the way up almost to Charleston, SC. You would have to look at a zone map with a magnifying glass to see us. It is primarily the sea islands and we are protected by both the gulf stream and miles and miles of marsh that keep us toasty.
Not to say it never freezes here, in the past it has, although the ground never gets cold enough to freeze. Also, when you live along the coast there are many micro climates and I am fortunate enough to be in a warm pocket. A friend about a mile away lost everything in her garden to a frost a few weeks ago.
Most of the clerodendrons do die down for me and when they come up, some of them are a bit too enthusiastic like the speciosissimum and the bungeii.
Got it! Most of the other people I've seen post from SC are in zone 7-ish so I figured that's where you were too!
clero u gets knocked down to ground level every winter here--but quickly recovers and even having to grow from ground level every year; it's over 9' tall and has even starting sprouting already this year.
I'm so surprised that anyone has trouble with speciosissimum. I'm in zone 8 and it behaves very nicely here. It is also one that I enjoy sharing with other people, and there are lots of people who want it.
However, if I could trade having my speciosissimum behave for living where it's a problem because it never freezes, I'd trade in a New York second.
I finally got rid of clero ugandense. It freezes down here but comes back huge, and I just found out it makes lovely cut flowers. However we have lots of very high winds and its stalks are brittle. I always had broken stalks, which made the plant ugly.
I love the Peanut Butter Shrub, Clerodendrum Trichotomum, with its lovely pink flowers followed by magenta bracts and bright blue berries. And although Bungei suckers like crazy, I enjoy the flowers (as do the butterflies) and mow the rest of them down.
I'm working on getting quadriloculare to bloom, too. My big one froze in the ground and might not come back, but I have babies in the greenhouse to try again later. Maybe next year........
Kay
This message was edited Jan 28, 2007 9:19 PM
This message was edited Jan 28, 2007 9:21 PM
