Dioscorea elephantipes – lots of vine, no leaves. Not enough light?

by Xyborg

6 Comments

  1. (forgive the silly-looking trellis, I didn’t realize when making it that the wire I had was in too thin a gauge for it to vine on) Hi friends! I purchased this D. elephantipes recently from a local nursery and it’s come out of dormancy in the last couple weeks. The vine is growing very quickly, but despite what I assumed would be enough light–it’s in an east-facing window in southern California, zone 10a, and gets direct sun in the morning and indirect light all afternoon–the vine has gotten pretty long without actually leafing. Does it need a grow light or to sit outside in the afternoons or something? Should I just redo the trellis with more surface area to grow on and let it do its thing? Is this something I should be worrying about at all? Thanks for reading and any help!

  2. calkinos

    The leaves are coming, just give it time. They usually vine out for a bit and then unfurl leaves, more light could help, but your set up isn’t bad either

  3. Tasty-Ebb-4984

    Mine usually gets a good 2 to 3 feet of vine before the leaves start developing. Then leaves will start to grow on any part of the vine that gets sun. Just give it some time. It’s like it is getting the lay of the land before it decides where it wants to put It’s leaves 🙂

  4. Aggressive_Talk_7535

    In my very limited experience they leaf out when they want to. Mine are grown indoors, but outside for the summer, and they often don’t leaf until they come back in

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