| Several months ago I bought a number of plants from Walmart (I know, I know, but sometimes they get some remarkable plants if you can grab them before they fail at the store), including a gorgeous Rex labelled 'Thor' (and it could well have been!). I repotted this plant, and gave it as much humidity as I could, and it's held up pretty well, as far as I can tell. There was some initial leaf tearing and cracking, and some crisping of some leaf edges, and some spotting on the interior of some of the biggest oldest leaves, but I got some new growth and some blooms this winter.
For allergy and other reasons, I've been converting all my plants to a soil-less hydroculture-type setup. I'd been putting this plant off 'coz of the delicate leaves, but when I finally took it on today I was quite surprised to discover that my "plant" actually consisted of nine separate plants all bundled tightly together (I'd just seen this in a dwarf schefflera I got from Walmart earlier, so I wasn't shocked, just surprised!). So what's up with this? I get where Wallies is coming from (nine plants make a nicer show faster than would one), but it's obviously not optimal for the plants.
What I'm wondering, though, is whether rexes are commonly grown by people that like them more than one plant per pot. In general I personally like the one plant look (except in mixed containers), but I don't know enough about rexes to judge whether they'll fill out enough or if it's standard practice to put more than one (but less than nine!) in a pot. |
