Warm/cold dormancies

[Ellen Hornig]

Carlo - as it happens, I'm not one of the "forcers"; I try to keep my
arisaemas on a more natural schedule.  I think, though, that they just end
up getting too much handling, and too many abrupt transitions, as they're
moved from community pots to the refrigerator and back to new pots, etc..
This year I'm trying to empty the com-pots, move the little tubers to
fresh medium, and leave them in my new minimum-heated house.  I'm hoping
the more gradual transitions from warmish to coldish and back again will
stress them less.

A note to whoever asked about A. triphyllum seeds: they germinate easily,
fresh or dried (and reconstituted with a 1-2 day soak).  Don latex gloves,
squeeze the seeds out of the berries, rinse and rub until the seeds are
clean, then either dry for future use or sow immediately.  If you do the
latter, you will, of course, have to cope with them growing off-season
(assuming you keep them at 60-70F), which seems inevitably to attract
aphid and spider mite problems.  The more I mess with arisaemas, the more
sense it makes to me to be patient and sow them in late spring.  But maybe
that's because I'm growing several thousand cyclamen instead, and they
take up most of the space under lights in the basement....

Ellen