A Tacca Tale...

...not for the faint of heart!
This is my Tacca integrifolia. This specimen is fairly old, it has been in the ground in this position in the greenhouse for 6 years and has grown pretty huge. I have divided many plants off of it to try to keep in with the limits of this space. Most I traded away, but, last season, I decided to take some and plant them outside and see what would happen over the winter.

They did beautifully in temps as low as 27-28F, had little or no leaf damage, one even bloomed! But as you know, we had a pretty hard late winter here in FL, temps dropped to at least 20F a couple of nights if not into the 18-19 range. When this happened, the Tacca I had planted out froze to the ground. I was pretty certain they were goners and was ready to chalk the experiment up to 'do not repeat this misadventure'...

Today, when I was working out in the yard, I was astounded to see every one that I had planted out is sending up new leaves! They are going to grow back! This pretty much blows me away. They are apparently a lot hardier than I thought.

I will try to take a photo tomorrow of the plants returning.

I just love happy endings! This thread reminded me, I spent way too much $$$ on seeds last year. Once I read the instructions for germination I just tossed them into the seed box. I may need to go find them now. What a fabulous plant! Did you start from seed? Or were you able to buy a plant?

OH my Gosh. Gothqueen, the Tacca is obviously hardier than what I ever imagined in my mind.

Thank's for posting this.

Rachel

Plants are commonly available here, so I never had to depend on seeds. Which is good because I am not very good at germinating seeds, LOL. I have a lot of black tacca in the GH as well that have self-seeded more than once. They germinate on their own with no help from me! But I know if I actually tried to germinate any they would probably ignore me.

Good to know they come back from freezing temps. One of the Home depos around here have had the white taccas since last fall for 39.00. I was sure they would prob kill them by now but last time I was there they still looked okay. They must be tougher than I thought.

Oh, well done! I love a good garden experiment.

I finally got out to take the pics of the plants coming back up. The weird thing is, they seem to have multiplied...
You can see the large stump of the main stalk, and some smaller plants coming out as well.

Oh my gosh, look at all those babies!!! Well done! :)

I still can't believe they survived the record cold we had here, unprotected. I am glad that I occasionally 'experiment', LOL

It would be interesting to take a look at Tacca's root system. Perhaps it is more like a tuber and is able to re-grow even though the part of the plant above ground has died. If anyone re-pots there Tacca, it might be worth removing all the soil from the roots (carefully) and checking it out.

There is only roots below the ground. There is a bulb-shaped base from which the plant can reshoot though.

Yeh I have seen the root system many times when I have cleaned them to send as trades. The black ones have more of a "tuberous" base than the white ones, but in reality both are just thick stemmed bases with fleshy roots

Just saw today while out in the yard that the Black Tacca is also coming back up!

What conditions do you grow your in? I tried one once but it died. I may have to try again.

I just planted these out under some trees and around my greenhouse. They get anything from dappled sun (under trees ) to full sun for over 1/2 the day (by the greenhouse). They are planted in plain old unamended Myakka Fine Sand (the national soil of FL, LOL). I fertilize them when I can. They do get watered at least every other day

I think I killed mine with kindness. I was told they needed babying. I'll have to find another one and try again.