Cardamon Not Flowering
Answered by: Conrad Richter
Question from: Joanne Bransford
Posted on: January 16, 2001
I love your printed catalogue and your website. You have more herbs
available than anyone else. Your catalogue is very educational.
Here in south Texas we don't see Herb Farms on the same scale as yours.
My question is how do you get Cardamon to bloom and then seed? My plant
is getting huge and still in a pot. It is about three years old.
There is some confusion in the North American herb industry about
cardamom. It appears that at least one non-flowering type has been sold
for many years as potted herbs by many herb growers, particularly in the
United States. Richters, too, sold this variety as cardamom until 1998.
It turns out that there are several species that are used for the cardamom
spice. The imposter appears to be a type of ginger which is very closely
related to cardamom. Nobody bothered to check its identity, probably
because it doesn't flower (flowers are needed for positive botanical
identification), so it continues to be sold incorrectly labelled as
cardamom.
Since we discovered the problem, we have been growing only true cardamom
grown from our seeds. These seeds are from spice plantations in South
America, so we are completely confident that we have the right variety
now.
To get cardamom to flower requires having the right variety, obviously,
and then requires having warm moist conditions.
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