Flowering rhubarb

I've been here 10 years and in that time, I've been nursing the rhubarb that I found here. It had been planted right in front of a huge privet hedge and was pathetic. I moved it, divided it, fed them and for the past couple of years have had an excellent crop from them (now 3 large plants).

This year, it's decided to flower! Not an issue for me, and I plan to let it carry on. The rest of the plants are still very healthy and leafing up nicely. I haven't decided whether to let it seed or not but with the plants being probably 15 years old at least (going by the size of the original clump), perhaps it is time to begin a new generation!

I just wondered why it might have suddenly decided to do it this year, after all this time? It's not gotten too wet or dry, it's in a good balanced spot for that. Any ideas?

 

They do that now and again

Generally you'd cut it off but if you'm got other plants then go for it

 

Well, I've got 3 of them, but they are all flowering! Got my it/them a bit mixed up there by habit, I tend to refer to them all as one plant.

 

Cut one off and leave the other 2 hopefully they'll polinate each other even if they are clones.

Bet you a jam sandwich all the seed will germinate

 

I will give that a try, thanks! Hopefully they will and I can make a few bob

 

Must admit to not having heard of anyone bothering to grow rhubarb from seed.

I tend to think it's like any other plant and if it is doing well it will flower, I think most people cut out the flowering spike before it gets big in order to turn the energy in to growing leaves.

Division is the way "normal" people propagate it.

 

What a brilliant story!

I didn't crop it after I divided it - at that point it was still half starved and pathetic so I left it be. This was 5 or 6 years ago now. I thought it was on the way out to be honest so it had a couple of years to recover and be fed before I started again.

If I was to move it again now, am I right in thinking I'd have to do that again and give it a couple of years before I started harvesting again? I didn't expect it to recover at all and instead it was rather overcrowded last year (which now I think about it might have poked it into flowering) as I planted it a bit too close to a wall and the plants to each other.

 

@nikirushka - have you had any deep frosts this year?

A tip someone once advised was to expose stubborn Rhubarb roots to frosty air as it puts the plant into shock and its natural reaction is to rapidly produce massively elevated sugar levels and hormones which can cause roots that otherwise "won't take" to suddenly burst into life. Was wondering if this could be applicable to your Rhubarb and the mysterious flowering?

 

@ARMANDII - sorry mate, pasted the wrong name into the thread at first but rectified it

 

I'm about an hour inland of the east coast and we've had a very mild winter here. We've had one, maybe two hard frosts so far this year and a few lighter ones but it's been milder this year than last, and it's getting milder every year. We used to get big frosts maybe a dozen times each winter that lasted most of the day, we've only had one of those so far this time.

 

Aye lad/lass those were the days. Proper cold winter and gorgeous hot summers... eeeeh. And all around, there were nothing but fields and warm Hovis bread. No idea why I'm talking like a Yorkshire man but they are usually called in for voiceovers about the past

Near the East coast too and TBH the winters here (apart from very occasional cold ones) are nowadays usually wet, mild and er, wetter and sometimes incredibly wetter. The 'turning soil into concrete' kinda frosts and the snow from childhood days never make an appearance now. Something's definitely different about the climate