My Amorphophallus plant----it stinks

The Amorphophallus plant is a fascinating plant. There are many different species that grow in tropical areas of the world mainly the Indonesia region. I have a love of growing the unusual and the common plant. The amazing thing about this plant is it has only one leaf. The leaf can be many feet wide depending on the size of the bulb. The flower usually smells like rotting meat to attract flies. All plants have developed different ways of pollinating. Often trees are pollinated by the wind. This method produces a great amount of pollen to ensure pollination hence allergies. The pollen can often be found on your car changing the color to a yellowish color. This usually happens after you wash the car. In my case, since I almost never bother to wash my car so it does not affect me. Other flowers pollinate from bees, wasps, flies, moths, birds and even bats. The list goes on and on. I purchased the Amorphophallus bulbs over the winter. These bulbs for most of these plants go dormant in the winter. I live in Zone 7 so I have to keep these bulbs inside. Being tropical plants they can’t take the cold, will die in a frost. They prefer temperature at least 40 degree F. I had the bulbs placed in the basement. The species I bought was the Amorphophallus Konjac. The bulb weighed about 5 pounds…Yes I paid a great deal of money for it. I placed it in the basement and completely forgot about it. In early spring, my mother commented there is something growing out of the box where I keep it dry. It looked like a monster. It had a huge stem like thing growing. I let it grow in the basement for a few more weeks. The plant was developing a flower…I was ecstatic..and also worried since it was in Mid March and way to cold to plant outside in my large pot. I decided to keep it in the back room by some filtered light. As the days went by, it grew taller by the day….By mid April, I was able to watch the weather forecasts and was able to place it outside. It was at least 5 feet tall, it was having the flower. Did you know the biggest flower in the world is from a Amorphophallus plant, the Amorphophallus Titanum. The flower can be over 5 feet tall and wow does it smell horrible. I’ve never seen one in person but I’m sure once you smelled it, you would never forget it. My girlfriends mom, wanted to know why I grew it…It’s simple because it has a beautiful leaf and hey who do you know that grows this plant…Be the first person in your neighborhood to grow this. You may have no visitors for several weeks when it flowers..but we can all use some down time to think about life and relax. I will post a picture tomorrow of the leaf..its absolutely beautiful…see you tomorrow…