Curcuma at hidden mound below our Watering Can Man
The curcuma plants were in blackened , fictile three - gallon containers near the entrance to a local box store , and not too far from kitchen sinks and plumbery supplies . They were in the final autumnal stages of peak , a fade pinkish - purpleness that point something a whole lot more lovely in vibrant young .
This was last spill . I intercept and looked , circled the plants , record an inadequate recording label . “ Curcuma”it said , and offer up little else other than a name that was fun to pronounce : “ Ker - cum - mummy . ” I made a flying check of it on my cell phone , bought three containers – at half Mary Leontyne Price – and headed home for more necessary research .
Curcuma at hidden hill below our Watering Can Man
Truth be separate , I often obsess the garden area of box entrepot , always somewhat amazed to find a clerk who actually knows a lot about plants , even at $ 8.95 an hour . Those folks are destined to be successful in liveliness – or already have been .
Some of that haunting of box storage is about affordability ; people who make for for newspapers for 40 years do n’t expend a spate of time buy one - gal perennial for $ 21.95 when the $ 12.95 are in township , albeit often in “ cheater ” gallon .
Some of it is timing ; boxwood stores seem to be discharge their truck loads of stuff about 20 proceedings after Christmas and when spring feverishness hit , there they are .
It ’s also a topic of being able to see what plants look like in bloom calendar week and months before they should be flower in your yard . Most box computer storage plant have been grown in greenhouses . Box store client are mostly crazy to buy them in bloom because then they will lose a lot of the natural bloom in their ground . On the other hand , it ’s an early instruction to buy the already - blooming mamma in September .
So fess up : How many of you alleged garden experts , medium gods , nursery owners , loaded patrons , reader to hunky-dory Gardening , Horticulture , The English Garden and Gun & Garden , customers of Brent and Becky ’s Bulbs and Plant Delights Nursery , frequent visitors to Chanticleer Garden , Missouri Botanical Garden and Butchart Garden , have find yourselves shopping the plant - litter aisles of some local box storehouse obsessively search for something a little different , novel or perhaps even better ?
There you go in waterproof , floppy hat and sunglasses , guide down and in mortal fear of being recognized , when comes the interrogative :
“ Sam The Garden Guy , what the hell are you doinghere ? ”
WellhereI was , shamelessly shopping for whatever looked raw , dear or cheap . I do often hit three or four favorite box store along with several family - own nurseries , and there were those three - Imperial gallon container of genus Curcuma , which I haveneverseen in a local worldwide nursery .
My first real research was somewhat syllable - vivid . Curcuma is a genus of about 100 accepted species in the kinfolk Zingiberaceae that contains such species as turmeric , the health supplement , and Siam Tulip . They are native to Southeast Asia , southern China , the Indian Subcontinent , New Guinea and northern Australia .
Back home again in Indiana – which is not quite tropical although this summer ’s record heat has it headed in that direction – I keep my curcuma in well - watered containers until actual frost showed up , cut them back and stick the rhizome in peat moss in a heavy binful in our 50 - degree cellar .
I remember those rhizomes being deep and matted and I did n’t mess much with them ; let sleeping rootstock Trygve Lie . I water on occasion over winter , hauled them back out into daytime after … . repetition after me … . all peril of frost had pass … and planted them in cock-a-hoop blue ceramic pots to look further ontogenesis .
And hold off and waited and waited .
My enquiry indicated genus Curcuma like a few hours of Dominicus or high undefended shade , rich soil , regular lacrimation and Indiana basketball – I just added the latter to see if you were still show .
I did wait and expect all through May and June as not much happened with my genus Curcuma , but it was plain too former to return them to the box store . The salutary news was our loaded spring weather brought monsoon conditions which must have made the industrial plant palpate right at home .
Then came our summer drought , which , with regular watering , still made the genus Curcuma feel aright at home . Somewhere about recent August into September add up the emergence that made me begin to find my half - price bargain was paying off in full .
Then came those full , previous - summer , purplish - garden pink blooms – which have endure for week – and those genus Curcuma potbelly began to stop traffic . As an added bonus , their leaves have stay uninfected and green and wholesome ,
I am now hoping for a late freeze this year – like next April – so I can maintain crow rights on this sweetheart . The practiced news is the rhizomes propagate so quick I may have six pots of curcuma next year , which will allow more reason to hunt up another winner in the box stores .
