Who has raised Victoria Longwood? Need advice...

[Sunbeam56]

So, I got a Vickie inthe mail. Now WHAT!!!!

Do red eared sliders eat them? This one has five leaves, only about four inches across - so its a baby. It looks like a red eared slider COULD eat it.

[tranquility]

Savannah I know Maryvonne has before...hopefully she will be able to tell you...don't they have thorns on the leaves and stems?
Lawanna

[Sunbeam56]

Its thorny, and the scratches are mildly irritating - like the tips of the thorns have some alkaloid in it.
But I've seen tortugas eat prickly pears... and I know that turtlekind have hard beaks...

Does anyone KNOW?

The red ear is between 7 and 8 inches across the shell (diameter).

[maryvonne]

I have no idea if a turtle could eat it, since I don't have turtles. You probably should try to keep the turtles away from it for a while just in case, because at this stage Victorias are still pretty hard to keep going. It will be more vigorous as it grows a bit.
I do hope your baby grows well for you. They are wonderful to have in the pond.

Maryvonne

[Joyce]

Yes, I would say any herbivorous or omnivorous turtle would eat it for now, while it is small and before it gets extremely thorny.
I would use standard potting mix.... aka my recipe.    Throw in some veggie formula osmocote to make it grow extra fast.
Since it is a huge lily, use a huge pot... if you want huge results. If you can find some completely composted manure, that would be great too.
Or just plain bagged compost.

Or plant it bare root at the bottom of the mud pond and set it free, then you'll get 'native habitat' results. 

Contrary to popular belief, my Vic grew VERY fast at a pretty deep placement, at least 30" deep in the big huge front display pond at work. Planted bare root in the mulm.
Water never was hotter than 80* at that depth.
What really screwed it up, was our famous east end Long Island Winds. Every time the pads got bigger than 36", we'd get a wind storm and they would get shredded.
The leaves are constructed with lots of air pockets, like packing peanuts, making them very lightweight and easily blown over....and shredded in high winds, like an umbrella.
Maybe I should try one again, this time in the lotus pond,
(I'd call it: WAR OF THE POND TITANS: LOTUS VS. VICTORIA)
which is recessed into the ground about 3', which helps buffer the winds a bit.

[Timgod]

Even if they do not eat the pads, turtles have a nasty habit of cutting through the stem at the crown of a plant.
If it loses the pads that way, it will die for sure.
Each leaf must provide the sugar energy for the next pads to come through photosynthesis.

Tim

[Sunbeam56]

Thank you for confirming the conclusion I came to without experience.
Turtle soup tomorrow!

[Cedric]

Even if they do not eat the pads, turtles have a nasty habit of cutting through the stem at the crown of a plant.
If it loses the pads that way, it will die for sure.
Each leaf must provide the sugar energy for the next pads to come through photosynthesis.

Tim

Tell me about it, tadpoles do the same to seedlings, reducing them to one leaf strugglers. Eish!

[JoshS]

Yes, definitely keep it away from the turtle.

Have you done any reading at http://www.victoria-adventure.org ?  Your baby isn't quite past the critical stage and will need some TLC...and good luck...to get going.  It is easy to over fertilize and kill them at this stage, so I wouldn't plant it in anything too rich, yet.

[Sunbeam56]

Yes, that's an excellent site.
I'm going to have to do something a little different tho, the Vickie will not be convenient for weekly fertilizer injections.

[Joyce]

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[PondmaninAL]

My standing rule is: never put a plant in with turtles if I want to keep it.

Happy ponding,
Scott

[maryvonne]

I grew my plants from seed by staring them in the basement sunroom under lights in January. They were grown in sand in small pots in an aquarium and then moved into a 150 gal tub. I also feed them according to the directions on the Victoria Adventure site including the special "Cocktail" I killed several by underfeeding and overfeeding but three plants did beautifully. In June they were moved into very large horse feed type containers planted in sandy clay local garden soil and placed in the large pond at a depth of about 4'. They continued to grow well but it was important to continue feeding them with the Cocktail as well as pond tabs according to the instructions provided by Kit Knotts to assure maximum preformance.
At this stage it is important to feed the plants the Cocktail because it contains micronutrients that may not be found in our soils. If they don't get exactly what they need they deteriorate very quickly. Victoria's also preferr acidic soil. I quess I would want to make sure I did every thing possible to ensure the plant thrives and produces those wonderful blooms.
The pads on our plants measured 3.5'-4' accross and between the three plants we had at least one bloom opening every night from the middle of July until the end of Aug when it got too cool for blooms.

Maryvonne

[Sunbeam56]

Wow!~

Did I read that right? You planted them four FEET deep?

[Sandye]

I grew my plants from seed by staring them in the basement sunroom under lights in January. They were grown in sand in small pots in an aquarium and then moved into a 150 gal tub.

The pads on our plants measured 3.5'-4' accross and between the three plants we had at least one bloom opening every night from the middle of July until the end of Aug when it got too cool for blooms.

Maryvonne

WOW!!!    I didn't know you had Victorias, Maryonne.  That's totally wonderful.     Do you have any pics of them? 

[maryvonne]

I successfully raised Victoria longwood from seed two summers in a row, 2004 and 2005. I got the seeds form Kit Knotts. Out of the 20 seeds I received the first year about 15 sprouted, but only three survived the difficult juvenile stage. Those three were successfully planted in a pond my DH built especially for them. They grew very well once established there and produced many blooms that summer. We got lucky with the weather that year. It was fairly warm. I met to write a Tutorial but some how haven't found the time yet, but when I find my journal I may just do that. I have lots of photos of the different stages. Here are a few:



This is a photo of the set-up my husband helped set up for my tropicals. The lamp is on a chain so it can be lowered as needed. It also slides accross the ceiling on a garage door track so I can slide back and forth accross the room.




The seeds start off in an aquarium heated to about 90 F. They stay there until they get their first floating leaves and then move to the large black tubs.




A photo of a newly sprouted seed. They are placed in a small pot of river sand at this point.




The young juvenile seedlings still in the aquarium. This is the most difficult stage. They need just the right amount of nutrients at this stage along with the correct tempurature and light in order to survive and grow. Most are lost at this point.



Now they have moved to the large black tub and are planted in 4" pots in a mixture of garden loam and sand. The tempurature can be lowered a bit but they still need good light to carry on growing. Feeding properly is still a challenge at this point.



This photo was taken a couple weeks after they were installed in the large pond. They are at about 4' in very large buckets used for feeding horses etc. It's a nasty job transplanting these at this point, because the they are very prickly and it's so easy to damage them.




The first bud and the leaves are starting to form their lip here. The leaves just keep getting larger from this point on until the weather cools in Sept.




The last few photos are of the first bloom. There were many others to come. Growing them was a lot of work but we really enjoyed them and I hope to be able to grow them again.








A second day bloom.

Hope this answers your questions.

Maryvonne

[Sunbeam56]

Yikes! Mine looks like the photo captioned "most are lost at this point"...

[Joyce]

Savannah, that is the same size mine was when I planted it bareroot.
It had no problems surviving bare root planting in a mud bottom pond. 

[miguynmkoi]

Maryvonne Thank You!  Very great tutorial!  Photos steps wonderful.  It must have been a fabulous feeling to see fruition of such a beautiful lily!  WOW!

[karen J]

Sunbeam56, good luck with your Vick.
You know, for some reason, I had a strange thought pop into my head. Something about a mud pond...

Maryvonne, those pictures are terrific. Thanks for posting them! You've got a wonderful plant set-up there.

[maryvonne]

Savannah,

I wish you well with your baby and I hope you will keep us posted on it's progress so we can all learn from your experience. Good luck and post some photos!

Maryvonne