Tropaeolum

[Ian Y]

Jose
Check out my bulb log for information on Trop azureum. Here are three links but if you check out the index, provided by Len Rhind, you will find several more references.

http://www.srgc.org.uk/bulblog/140503/log.html

http://www.srgc.org.uk/bulblog/041103/log.html

http://www.srgc.org.uk/bulblog/log2006/080306/log.html

[Iturraran]

Ian,

EXCELLENT info, many thanks!.
I can see this is a very difficult plant, I better 'play' with T. speciosum first, and if I succeed, perhaps T. azureum will be tried one day 

[Martin Baxendale]

I've been wondering if I dared post this in case it gave anyone a heart-attack - I bought some yubers of Tropaeolum ciliatum last year with the intention of trying to cross it with my parents' plants of T. speciosum, in the hope of raising some hybrids with the flower colour of speciosum and the vigour and tolerance of dry conditions of ciliatum, which would succeed in my dry garden.

I'm now going to sit back and wait for the screams of alarm from various forumist who find speciosum a pest, let alone a speciosum/ciliatum hybrid. I might still try it. Be afraid! Be very afraid!   

[Tony Willis]

Martin having spent 14 years and a small fortune on plants to totally fail, I would be happy to have one that looks like speciosum however rampant

[Martin Baxendale]

Martin having spent 14 years and a small fortune on plants to totally fail, I would be happy to have one that looks like speciosum however rampant

That was my feeling too, Tony.

[Lesley Cox]

Martin having spent 14 years and a small fortune on plants to totally fail, I would be happy to have one that looks like speciosum however rampant

My feelings exactly. I do have a dry garden of course, where T. ciliatum thrives and ramps while T. speciosum vanishes over night. So I was offended deeply when Dave Toole down the road having given me some thin rhizomes of the latter, showed relief when they didn't "do" for me, as if I should be grateful and his guilt at the gift was expunged. So offended in fact, that unbeknownst to him, I travelled down there in the dead of night and put a dead possum in his water tank.

[t00lie]

Firstly you're pic'd at the South west Exeter Show and now you've been down this way Lesley.
You sure do get around girl !!!!.

Martin and Tony
I'd start stocking up on Roundup ---you're gonna need it !!!.


Cheers dave.

[David Lyttle]

Martin,

Not withstanding  Dave's advice Roundup wont even touch it. Why dont you consider doing something benign like manufacturing anthrax !

Lesley,

Having had to cope out here with Clematis vitalba, Passiflora mollissima and Bomarea multiflora over-running our bush remnants we now also have Tropaeolum speciosum being spread by the birds from the garden of someone who should know better. She keeps it, apparently, because it attracts the birds. The local eco activists would happily cover you with aniseed and sew you in a wool sack with a dozen live possums for company if you started growing the thing.

Tropaeolum speciosum is the most appalling weed as it is virtually impossible to control once it jumps the garden fence. Here it is all through the bush in the Taieri Gorge above Outram. Improving a weed by giving it hybrid vigour is not a good idea.

[Martin Baxendale]

Tropaeolum speciosum is the most appalling weed as it is virtually impossible to control once it jumps the garden fence. Here it is all through the bush in the Taieri Gorge above Outram. Improving a weed by giving it hybrid vigour is not a good idea.

I appreciate the problem with Tropaeolum speciosum becoming such a terrible weed in some places where the local climate really suits it, but here in the UK it simply won't grow at all in many areas, and a lot of gardeners would love to grow it. But not to worry. I probably won't find the time to do the cross anyway. And if I do, it most likely wouldn't take.

[David Lyttle]

Thats a relief Martin. Another hybrid weed here is the orange Montbretia. People dig it out of their gardens usually by the trailer load and dump into nice damp gullies on the roadsides with predictible results.

The trouble with swapping plants through international exchanges is that species end up in places where they can create problems not just for individual gardeners but serious ecological problems that are very expensive and sometimes virtually impossible to mitigate.

[Susan]

And of course we have gorse.  Hard to grow in Australia I believe but a massive weed here. Brought in with the best of intentions and now rampant.  Dipping T speciosum into pure Roundup does have limited success but I am not sure it gets right into the tubers unless they are small, although it  knocks it back. 

Susan

[Lesley Cox]

Right. I'll go and stick my head in a bucket of water for even thinking about growing it.

[Michael]

Having had to cope out here with Clematis vitalba, Passiflora mollissima and Bomarea multiflora over-running our bush remnants we now also have Tropaeolum speciosum being spread by the birds from the garden of someone who should know better.

Bomarea? Is that a weed? This is getting even more interesting. Yes i understand that some plants are very noxious to the environment (here we also have problems with P. molissima and Anredera cordifolia), but i had no idea that beautifull plants such as Bomarea could be that invasive and problematic ...

[Lesley Cox]

Yes Mike, I'm afraid so. And not only B. multiflora. Other species are almost equally invasive if given the opportunity. It seems that in New Zealand almost any climbing plant which is not killed by frost, is potentially a dangerous weed. My mother used to grow Ipomea learii which is a glorious blue and it was cut every year by frost but further north, it is a rampant and very vigorous weed, as bad as the common white Convolvulus.

[David Lyttle]

I am involved with a group that is interested in the restoration/conservation of native forest. Amongst the weeds that are problems lianes are the most difficult to deal with as they are tangled in other vegetation.  At the top of the list I would place Tropolaeum and Bomarea. They come from a similar climatic region, are distributed by birds and have underground tubers from which they can resprout. It takes a great deal of effort and persistence to locate plants and remove them. With Bomarea our local eco activists locate plants that are flowering, physically dig them out so they will not set seed. They take the GPS co-ordinates so they can return next year for follow up treatment. Of course some people think they are nice garden plants and do not want them removed but the local authority has a noxious plants list and if you have a listed plant growing you are compelled to remove it. All these plant started as garden escapes. Dave Toole's persistence and effort in removing Tropolaeum from his property is admirable - not enough people deal with their infestations in a timely and effective manner.