Tacca culture

    I forget to water my bat plants in the winter.  They're having a rest.  Just because it is tropical does not mean it wants to be without seasons.  In August in Costa Rica on the Equator, the cloud forests at 6000 ft altitude cool down to 40 Fahrenheit and become very foggy on the Atlantic side of the country.  By contrast the Pacific side goes all dry and dormant and leafless.  And the residents poinsettias bloom. Because even though it is on the equator, it is Winter there. To have Bat Flowers, one must have seasons. 

    I have not been to the Congo at 6000 ft altitude in the winter to see Tacca in person, but the metaphor is the same.  Taking care of a newly acquired Tacca is like taking care of anything else.  The more immediate time and care one puts into a rare thing, the more that thing gives back in the big picture.  The ideal of "good for the moment planning" has no place when Tacca is involved.

     I grow my Tacca in Metromix500 mfg. by Sierra Grace, Peters Potting Soil (from the same folks who brought you the blue fertilizer), Miracle-Grow Potting Soil (home of the Giant New Jersey Beefsteak Tomato), or Scott's Potting Soil (Lawn Fertilizers).  They're all owned by Monsanto now and so its the same stuff under 4 different labels.   That's my soil.  I recommend you  click the next link, there's a return link at the bottom of that page to this page.

    My plants always have plenty of humidity.  They spend much of the year out of doors where they live under a 300+ year old Live Oak.  In the dapples of sunlight which occasionally make their way through the canopy above.  The air does not move much if at all.  It is seldom above 92 degrees there.  The humidity is heavy.  There are leaves on the ground and earthworms sometimes get in to the pots.  They stay outside down to 38 degrees Fahrenheit and they get no water from me in the winter, only when it rains.  This is their dormant season.  Every 3 years on average I remove them from their pots and gently wash the soil from their roots using 78 degree water.  Then I sterilize my clippers blades by flaming the blades with a butane barbeque lighter for a couple of seconds on each cutting surface.  This prevents me from spreading pathogens from one plant to another of the same kind.  Cut off any diseased or dead roots off, and any that are broken or snapped, because they are just going to rot off when you pot them up again, and we don't want dead roots for fungus to have a home in the container 2 months down the line...  

    I fill the bottom of the pot with some leaves or mixed mulch--low toxins! No pine or fir bark not eucalyptus, I use oak branches that are old and crumbly, or an inch of cypress mulch, uncolored. to keep the dirt from washing out of the holes in the bottom.  If you prefer using something else than leaves, use it.  Then the pot is 1/3 filled with soil, in a cone shape.  The center of the plant is held over this cone of soil and the roots are made to spread out through the new soil as it is added.  The objective is to not have all of the roots clumped together but rather evenly distributed through the soil.  Do not mush the soil into the pot with your hands, this only mashes the roots below.  The new soil should be even with the base of the oldest leaf on the plant when you are finished watering the first time.  The addition of  or a similar vitamin-B-hormone-transplant's drench is recommended.   Add more soil back to the same lowest leaf base as before after the first drenching if you have to. If you can't find it in your hometown,  I can send you some, it's one of two things I sell to keep this website going.

The leaves may be staked to keep the plant upright for the first few weeks.  Use strips of plastic to tie firm knots around the stakes first, and then loosely tie the tops of the leaves stems to the stakes.  Put it where it will get bright light but not sun, in a place which will have a little bit of air movement but not much.  A top-dressing of moist but not wet sphagnum moss is beneficial for maintaining high humidity around it.  Keep it fairly moist but not sitting in water for the first week to ten days.  After that, let it dry somewhat between watering, not all the way, but enough so that new roots will have a reason to go looking for water.   Wait 2 weeks before beginning liquid based fertilizers, and then use them at 1/4 the ratio called for, about every 3rd or 4th watering.  Fertilize that way from April 15 through September 15, then stop fertilizing and let the plants go dormant for winter.  Dormant here means that you give it enough water to stay green but do not waterlog the soil constantly.  The plant knows when its night cycle is long and knows that to be winter, a time of not growing but just sustaining. 

Sometimes they just keep on blooming all winter too.  These are seed raised plants.  Each will be an individual.  Each will have its own metaphor of a personality.   But you're probably used to that from plants already.