My oxalis is getting big. It has grown a lot since I got it about a year or so ago.
Its leaves are fascinating. Daytime they open up in their full glory. Nighttime, when it is dark, they fold in the leaves and close.
For a while the past autumn and winter I thought it was dying. It kept losing leaves. The leaves just collapsed. I also had it in a lighter spot for a while. It didn’t like that so had it moved a bit further from the window and onto the kitchen table.
But then it started sprouting new leaves and even flowers.
The flowers are beautiful. Small and pink in a cluster.
Both leaves and flowers first appear as small loops at earth level. They grow fast though so in a couple of days they are up.
The whole plant turns towards the light so you have to turn it around frequently.
I also have wild oxalis in the garden. I dug them up from another space where they suddenly appeared and at first put them into pots.
They spread like weeds… and keep coming back each year. I’ve even removed a lot of them when they became too many. The wild ones in the garden look different though and are another specie.
At first I had the wild oxalis in pots, but soon enough moved them into the flowerbeds instead. The leaves of the wild oxalis are rounded and their flowers are yellow and bloom a very short time. The wild ones behave the same way as the ones indoor. They close their leaves at night, and open them again when light comes in the morning.
There is also a green variant of the oxalis which has white flowers. Have been considering to buy one of those too. Have to wait though until I can move the small pelargonia plants outside for the summer so I get some more space in the kitchen windows… Presently it is quite crowded there.
There are about 900 species of oxalis… Read more about it here.