How to Grow Dragonfruit Part 4: Blooming & Pollination 🐉🏵️

The time is now 2.30 PM. It is now 4.23 PM, 5.30 PM checkup, 6.30 PM. What's up guys? Kevin here with part four of the dragon fruit series. We have the flowering is going on right now behind me. Super exciting. And hopefully soon some pollination and some fruiting. So in this video we're going to take it from its current stage, which you're going to see in a second, all the way through ideally to that first dragon fruit. Now this is something that I've been growing since October, 2018. It is almost October, 2019 right now. So a year's worth of progress, incredible progress. So let's take stock of what we have here. The first one you'll notice is actually down here. So that one's looking really promising. I'm going to leave that one alone, but this one has one, two, three, four, and five flower buds that are actually developing extremely fast. Now what is going on with this one? You can see it's quite a bit smaller. It is a bit yellow and it looks like it's kind of going to abort itself. And this is something I learned from Richard over at Grafting Dragon Fruit is if you just speed the process up by just plucking this off, then you're going to allow this particular stem to devote more energy towards this guy, this guy, this guy, and this guy. And usually three, four, sometimes even five can be a little too much. So taking this off is going to be helpful for devoting more energy towards these more promising flowers. So here we go. Still feels a little foreign to remove it, but we are going to do so. Let's just twist them off without damaging the other ones. And there we go. This guy probably on his way to the grave anyways, and we've just sped up the process. Now the plant doesn't have to throw resources out into this zone. Just focus it on these guys. What's up guys? It's October 7th. I was away on a trip for five days and I was paranoid that my dragon fruit would flower while I was gone. Fortunately, it looks like that's not the case and it looks like I may have gotten back at the perfect time. So let's go ahead and take a look. Look at this one stem that originally had five buds, but now looks like only two are going to make it. So these are the two ones and you can see just in a little bit of time, I think when I left on the trip, it was probably right here. So it's almost doubled in five-ish days, which is absolutely insane. We have two lower ones here that are aborting out. And so what I'm going to do is I'm just going to twist and look how easily that came off. That just came right off. So that is clearly not going to make it. We're going to do the same here. So goodbye my friends. You've made your dedication has been noted. But this guys, this, this is the one that I'm talking about. I was talking with my friend Richard over at Grafting Dragon Fruit who has a lot more experience growing these than I do. So check his channel out. But look at how they're starting to separate right here. Look at how these are starting to open up. He said that in the next 48 hours guaranteed we're getting this to bloom. It may even happen tonight. So I'm going to come back over the course of the next couple of hours until sunset tonight and take a look at this one and see if it's actually going to bloom today. I am so freaking excited. The time is now 2.30 PM. Look at that. You can really start to see the actual petals starting to show up. So I am going to put my money on that. It's happening today guys. And like I said, I am an actual father now. This is my actual child and I will not take any debate about this subject. So I'm going to check back in an hour or two. We'll see how it goes. Hopefully we have this opening up tonight around eight or 9 PM. It is now 4.23 PM. Look, you can see more is starting to peak out. It's starting to show up over here as well. We are probably four to five hours away from the actual bloom. Check in soon. 5.30 PM checkup. Getting closer, getting closer, but still kind of looking to breach. It looks like this is the newest change right there. 6.30 PM. This is the most exciting birth since the Royal Family, guaranteed. It is really starting to open now. I presume we're going to actually see this section starting to open up in under 120 minutes. Stay tuned folks. As it's 7.23 PM, as you can see, the progress is absolutely incredible. Look inside. Look at that. You can start to see the actual interior of the flower. Oh my God. It looks so amazing. Oh my gosh. I never dreamed childbirth would be this beautiful. Okay. 7.23 PM. We are very, very close now. We're going to come back very, very soon guys. It's opening really fast now guys. It is 7.36 PM. I wanted to show you just how quickly it starts to open when, when it really starts to go. Oh my gosh, look at that. Look at that. It looks like an alien. My child is an alien guys. Oh my God. I can't tell you how incredible it is to watch this happen in such a short time span. You know, most of the time our plants are, they grow in timespans that are much longer than what we're used to witnessing with our eyes. So to be able to see this, it's just really cool. I mean, wow. Look at that. And this is only a year old dragon fruit plant. Look at this plant. It's only a year old. I got two more that are going to be coming. Oh my gosh. Okay. Next shot is going to be when it's fully, fully open. And there we have it everyone, ladies and gentlemen, the dragon fruit. My child has come to fruition. Look at this beautiful flower. It is hands down one of the largest flowers you'll ever see. And it's also one of the most beautiful. Now inside here, it's very hard because I'm also holding the light up. But right in there, the circular stuff is the anther. Those are the anthers. That is the male part of the flower. Right here we have the female part of the flower. So when we're talking about self pollinating, and I believe this is a self pollinating variety, we have to collect some pollen from these anthers, which will be kind of, see, like it's hard to see, but they might, it might be even a little bit down there already. I think I have to wait a little bit longer and we have to rub it all over the female part here, the stigma. And that is how you self pollinate the dragon fruit. And I hope this is a self pollinating variety, but wow, it is just such a beautiful, gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous flower. I can hardly even believe it myself. Okay guys, look, you can see the grains of pollen. You can see the leaves, or sorry, the petals already kind of starting to decay a little bit. Our window is now. This is when we have to do it. What I'm going to do, I'm going to take a toothbrush. I'm coming in and I'm just brushing these anthers. I'm trying to get pollen. I'm trying to get pollen. I'm trying to get pollen. Look at that. I have it. I have it. Oh, this is, this is a beautiful moment. We are, we are just going in and pollinating the heck out of this. And I'm pretty sure this is a self pollinating, self fertile variety. If it's not, I will be pretty sad. But nevertheless, it's still a useful little lesson. Now you could collect this pollen if you wanted to. The problem is this is angled upwards. It's hard for me to kind of get it to collect onto like something like this right here. So I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to do this method and really hope and pray that it works. So here we go. Stay tuned. We'll probably snap to tomorrow or whenever the fruit does or does not set. So stay tuned. What's up? It's the morning after the epic birth of my firstborn child, the dragon fruit flower. And you can see it is already closing up. It's time and the sun is over and we're going to see if this sets fruit. Like I said, my friend Richard over at Grafting Dragon Fruit thinks that this is a self pollinating, self fertile variety. So I wouldn't have had to cross pollinate and it will set fruit from a single flower. So fingers crossed. We are hoping that's the case. Highly encourage you guys to watch the first three parts of the dragon fruit series. This is part four. Next up will be the fruiting phase. And I think that'll be the conclusion of this series. So thank you so much for tuning in. Make sure you throw a comment down. If you have any feedback, any questions, and I'll see you guys in the next one. Good luck.