Oxalis (Purple Shamrock)
Hi all,
I bought a beautiful, lush, compact purple shamrock from a garden centre last year and when I brought it home it started losing most of it's leaves and stems just shrivelled up. I took them all off an hoped for the best, apparently they sometimes go dormant and and then spring back to life at a later stage.
According to the internet these plants are a doddle! If only I could find the magic solution to making it bounce back to it's original state, I'd be over the moon! it now has 5 leggy stems (one new one came up last week so there is hope) but it's nowhere near the beautiful state it was in when I first bought it.
Can anyone help? I've let it dry out completely and I watered it thoroughly the other day to see if that helps at all.
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I'm new to them myself and just bought my first. Such an unusual and fun plant to watch fold up like kissing butterflies and go "night-night" at dark. I read that they will go dormant if they get too hot or dry, but that they will perk back up if kept in moist conditions. Mine is potted in a large picture window indoors. I read they can be invasive outdoors, so I'm reticent to put it into the ground.
Give yours more frequent waterings and perhaps it will "wake up" again.
I lost mine too i think, i potted it up to over winter in cold greenhouse, no sign of life yet, such a pretty delicate plant, i also had the green one and that faired much better than the purple one.?
I have one on the window sill, it's kept out of direct sunlight and placed in a bowl of water for a hour or so for a drink once a week. Chuck some liquid feed in once in a while when I remember! It seems to do rather wel.
I've planted some outside but I have no idea if it will survive, I had no idea it was invasive though!
What I've learnt is they come from the rain forests of northern south America, so depending on exactly where, become dormant in the rainy season between October/November.
They then spring back to life as the rains subsides, any new corns sending tap roots down to follow the moisture.
Transferring those facts to a pot in my conservatory, somehow it still seems to know when to have a rest for a month or so?!. I then remove stems fully when limp with a gentle tug, avoid cutting them!. Once it's ready it simply starts to regrow, i at this time water it lightly from the top to keep the soil only moist. Once though it gets going i further reduce top watering while increasing bottom watering, until i only water from bottom, albeit, I'll water bald patches to see if anything's there so can grow, or if I badly disturb a corn pulling leaves/flower stems and perhaps break a tap root.
Following that method, in a 10" dia 5" deep bowl, broke my record last year with a constantly flowering dome of leavesome 34" across
I have one of these (Oxalis triangularis) on a North facing windowsill and it is such a beautiful, dainty-looking plant but it seems to hate direct sunlight or damp compost. Found this out through trial and error.
Once repotted and moved to a windowsill that gets no direct sunlight, it's thrived and is a mass of stunning petals and it flowers all year-round. The white roots are astonishingly large for such a seemingly delicate plant and can imagine them running wild in the right conditions outside.
They can be grown outdoors in the UK in a shaded spot but are usually kept in check by Winter temperatures which they aren't adapted to.
Yes, I kept this going in a shaded, woodland border for a couple of years but it has disappeared this year, I think because of the heavy frosts we had in north-east Edinburgh....I dug around with a trowel to see if i could find any sign of it but nothing at all....pity as it is a lovely plant.