Esperanza said: David I thought about growing this when I first discovered it but I read somewhere just to get any decent size at all takes up to 20 year.

Well who cares? haha. I will get to see it for a good long well and when the time is right donate it to the local University.

Thanks for thinking of me Mary - that bookstore sounds neat and a place I would have to stay away from :-)

Pistil said:
There is an essay about your Welwitschia! He calls it a tree, trunk growing 1 foot tall, four feet wide, taproot 15 feet deep.

That is in the wild.

Fascinating that it would happen to be in a book that you happened to find at a used bookstore that you happened to stop at. Being such an esoteric plant.

People have grown it in fairly small pots for years. And it actually likes somewhat moist media. I was in contact with a chap from Dernmark.

http://www.bihrmann.com/caudic...

He had them for years and gave to Botanical Garden when he had to go do research for a long time. Most of his plants - these included - died.

Hopefully I will have a couple plants. Fingers crossed. One I will keep in full sun in summer and grow it directly under my 800 Watts of Metal Halide lights in Winter.

seedscoseeds.com

Welcome to the site Matt.

Matt68005 said:seedscoseeds.com

Why posted? [scratching head]

David, I think it's just a spammer.

Yeah. He posted the same thing in a thread about Select Seed Co. I gave him some hints over there.

Woohoo ... finally got around to planting my seeds Thursday. Wish me luck.

Mixed up what I hope to be super fast draining with lotsa sand and crushed granite.

Now on a heat mat, with a dome and under lights in my basement.

Ah -- the beginning of a very interesting (and potentially very long... 1000 years?? ) experiment!

How many seeds did you plant, David?

All 10 of 10.

Oh, my bad -- I looked back at the older posts and thought you had 100 seeds

I can't wait to hear how this works out for you!

Woohoo ...

3 seeds have germinated after 9 days!! Now if I can just keep them from getting trashed by fungus!

Way to go David.

BTW - I have yet to inform my wife of this purchase.

Think I might wait a few years. "Hey Linda - lookkee what I grew!!"

DavidLMO said:BTW - I have yet to inform my wife of this purchase.

I hope she doesn't decide to join ATP, then!

"Don't worry about the expense, Dear. I grew it from seed!"

I WILL remember that line Rick.

BTW - My count is up to 5!!!!! I am freaking elated. Now I need to treat them with some type of anti-fungal as they are very susceptible.