Hi,

Four years ago, I successfully grew some gloriosa lily tubers which bloomed quite well. When I was lifting the tubers in the fall I found that they'd multiplied generously. The next year, though, the vines grew weakly for a few months and eventually withered away. When it came time to digging up any tubers, I found they'd mostly disappeared. The next year (year three, now), I found a few vines "volunteering" in various containers: I guess that somehow some tubers - they could only have been very small ones - escaped my notice and got stuck into the containers when I was recycling/ammending the previous year's potting soils. Once again, the vines grew for a while then languished and died. I don't know if the problem had to do with cultural conditions or not. I had noticed that the vines had some striping and that some leaves were a little stunted and distorted. I chalked it up to experience of the "been there, killed that" kind, with no further plans to try growing gloriosas again.

This year, once again, I find that I've got a couple of vines growing in one of my containers. They look okay, but unless I can figure out what's been going wrong, I expect they'll languish as they have before.

Is anyone able to tell me what is going on with these gloriosa lilies? Are they suffering from some kind of nutrient deficiency? Or maybe a virus? It's a mystery to me also how I could sift through all the soil in a container and not find any tubers only to have them sprout from the same soil the next year, but I don't suppose anyone can help me with that one.

These tubers have been so persistent that I'd like to give them a better chance this year if I can.

Thanks,

cranebill