Thorelii 'Giant Tiger' (and others) question

[phissionkorps]

I guess this pertains to some forms of mirabilis, some forms of thorelii, sp. Viking, and rowaniae (unless I'm missing something).

Do these plants require a dry season? Does anyone give them a dry season? I had a thorelii Giant Tiger once, and though I thought I was keeping it too dry, I figured out I watered it to death. I'm thinking of giving all my tuberous neps a "dry season" in the winter when its colder in my house (85ish day, 68ish night). I have a new Giant Tiger, and I was watering it the same as my other stuff, and it started to look a little unhappy. I started watering it wayyyy less and it looks like its going into a growth spurt.

My sp. Viking was subjected to a horrible dessication in early Jan, and I thought I would lose it for sure, but now it seems to be performing/recovering quite well, performing at least as well if not a tad bit better than it had been.

Is this all just coincidence, or would a dry season help?

[hongrui]

i have not and probably will never withhold water from my neps. with the tropical sun shinning on mine, dehydration is more of an issue. 3 days without water = dead neps.

[plantlover]

My neps will look like crumpled paper bags without water in their pitchers.

[phissionkorps]

I grow everything in decent humidity under lights. I was under the impression that in the wild, thorelii Giant Tiger got a dry season because of the monsoon cycle? At least one of those tuberous species (I can't remember which) gets pretty dry for a while...to where the soil gets hard and I think sometimes cracks.

[rainforestguy]

Dear PK,
I have always pondered about this regarding these monsoonal climate species. I did experience an occurrence regarding auto-watering on my sp. Viking and mirabilis from same region.
I used to grow a lot of my N. sp. Viking, thorelii, mirabilis (SE Asian forms) in a very sunny hot area with drip lines into each two gallon pot. Then something happened where one of the rows of lines lost their water supply through a leak and five pots in that row did not receive water for a total for four months. I noticed one day that just the five pots next to one another looked dead-brown and everything dried up. When I got to that area and saw the overall damage, it appeared that the line had got severed where it irrigated that area. I reconencted it to the broken line and got involved in something else and forgot to take off the dead plants away from the overpowering neighboring plants. in just two weeks of back to normal watering, each "dead" pot sprang up with a multitude of offshoots that filled the pot. At first to me, it appeared to look like some seedlings had germinated and super-duper grew into larger plants. This is interesting as many of these plants were single stemmed plants on a cut up tuber. They grew faster and became sturdier twice as fast as the normal unaffected plants. Soon each "dead" plant gave an appearance that they were fertilized and the "unaffected" plants were missed. But this was not the case.
But I do not believe they require this dry dormancy. I believe they can be resistant to drought in the most severe cases, but it isn't necessary. After growing sp. Viking and thorelii for five years now, I haven't seen any form of decline or retarded growth due to climate or weather patters or even forced dormancy. I bet that those living in the monsoon belt have plants that grow all year long because they do water and fertilize when not naturally by climate change.


M

[phissionkorps]

Thanks Michael, that really helped. I'll just keep growing them normal, but if for some reason it looks like I'm overwatering, I'll hold back a bit. Good to hear that you've had them growing the same for 5 years with no dry period.