The Great Honking Smokin’ Hot Gargantuan Poker Plant of Annie’s Blooms Again!

September 28, 2025 Aldrin Espinosa

Archive note: This article recalls a past display and plant offering at Annie’s former Richmond nursery. It does not indicate current availability; check current product pages for plants available online.

The Giant Poker Plant Is Back and Blooming Like Never Before!

in its tray. Not very promising for propagability, but a plant with this magnitude of awesomeness? Sometimes one MASSIVE POKER PLANT is enough! We were pretty thrilled with our crop of one, feeble though it was. Our wee seedling spent a few months in the back of the greenhouse, and then was transferred to larger quarters where it began to grow… and GROW… AND GROW! Last October it sent up its first flower spike for our Big Fall Party (Timing plus! Sweet of it to mark the occasion, don’t you think?) and acquired many new admirers. Now again, just in time for our big event, our glorious mama plant is putting on another big show!

Jen, for scale The plant has doubled in size since last fall, and added a few spikes to its floral display. If the amount of growth it’s put on this year is any indication, next year we might have to throw IT a party. It became one of the most awe-inspiring specimens at Annie’s former Richmond nursery. Up Up Up!
At the time, we raised a small crop for mail order and offered larger in-bud specimens at the Richmond nursery. Those plants crowded around the original specimen, looking oddly like mini-monster babies of the big mama in the huge pot.

Though this species is from wetlands, ours has thrived with average water in a (HEEUGE) pot of good soil. We top dress with compost once a year when the plant is in growth (it goes deciduous in Winter, which I fretted over the first season for no good reason – it grew like mad once warm weather returned) and try to keep it out of the way of excessively harsh weather.

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