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Post by stevestewart on Sept 13, 2007 22:08:01 GMT
Does anyone else freeze dry their Nepenthes pitchers? I just put them in the freezer until they are obviously dry and then they can be waxed, painted or left natural. Some species do better than others, most thin paper like pitchers like N. mirabilis & N. alata are difficult. woody pitchers like N. lowii, and N. bicalcarata are easier. For some reason uppers of N. x hookeriana and N. rafflesiana are easy while the lower pitchers of them are difficult. This is a thumbnail photo of a dried arrangement my ex made, This thumbnail photo shows just a few of the types that I have had success with. Paint colors and varieties are up to individual taste. Take care, Steven Stewart
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Post by Hikenyura on Sept 14, 2007 0:02:00 GMT
Wow, can you teach me how to freeze dry a pitcher. E-mail me at hikeyura@yahoo.com I've always wanted a preserved nepenthes pitchefr. Yours looks nice by the way.
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Post by glider14 on Sept 14, 2007 2:36:41 GMT
im gonna do this sometime... dunno when though. i might pluck a few nice looking pitchers(if growers permit that is!!) from the NECPS show to take home and freeze dry myself! is it necessary to wax them?
Alex
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Post by pinglover on Sept 14, 2007 11:37:00 GMT
Oh I couldn't, I just couldn't. The pitchers are beautiful, particularly the little still life your x-wife created but my hands would be sweaty and I'd be having heart palpitations while cutting them off my plants. That would be up there with creating stuffed pitchers for my family for dinner, I'd definitely be stressing if I had to cut them off my plants to bake and eat them. I'd buy one of those decorative still lifes/dried flower arrangegments though. It's definitely attractive and I've never seen one before.
Did she make any more? Have any other photos?
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Post by glider14 on Sept 15, 2007 4:24:29 GMT
well i made the leap and cut my largest N. sanguinea orange pitcher and a Cephalotus pitcher, cleaned them out, dried the inside as much as i could, and put them in the freezer. i cant wait to get my results. already the Nep pitcher went from a yellow persimtone with red stripes to something that looks like N. burbidgea!
Alex
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Post by zpyder on Sept 15, 2007 11:41:21 GMT
Great idea! I've found an old pitcher that was put on the compost heap had stayed in pretty good condition some months after it was put there, I wonder if other species than Nepenthes are able to dry and stay in such good condition? I'm almost tempted to take a pitcher of N.sanguinea to University and freeze dry it in liquid nitrogen, to see whether this would give a different result than in a normal freezer. However as my plant is quite young I don't want to give up one of the few nice pitchers! If you are near a university with a science department, it might be worth contacting them regarding access to the liquid nitrogen. It's seriously cool stuff (in more ways than one ) and would require such little effort on their part that I can't see why they would decline...Whilst doing my dissertation I needed to freeze dry maggot samples on a weekly basis. Each time I asked about liquid nitrogen the lab tech would jump at the opportunity to pour some out. Not only can you put things like leaves in for just a few seconds before they become instantly dry and brittle (like in Terminator 2) but once you're done, it's an awesome sight to pour it away. It boils off and smokes and looks quite spectacular! Definately worth investigating IMHO if you can!
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Post by stevestewart on Sept 15, 2007 11:53:24 GMT
Hikenyura, Freeze drying is pretty straight forward, just cut a pitcher that the lid is beginning to brown on, clean it with water and put it in the freezer. It is important not to disturb the pitchers that are in the process of drying. Holding a frozen pitcher will thaw it very quickly, causing damage where it thaws. When dry, the pitchers have the ability to tolerate holding, before they are completely dry they will melt into mush if allowed to do so. Alex, It isn't necessary to do anything to the freeze dried pitchers, I just experiment with different colors and dyes. I don't recommend wood stain. I thought it would give the brown pitchers a wood carved look, but it doesn't. Green, and many other colors of paint, also look lame to me. I found Cephalotus to be one of the most difficult to freeze dry. They will dry well, but they take at least two months to become dry enough to remove from the freezer. When holding the dried Cephalotus pitcher, only hold the stem. If the side wall bends in they are difficult to find a proper tool to push the inner wall back out without doing more damage. Some pitchers will retain their color for years and some will turn brown while freezing. In the thumbnail I posted there is one Nepenthes rafflesiana and a N. x hookeriana that have held their color for seven years. Also pictured are the same species and hybrid from different type plants that turned brown while in the freezer. Pinglover, Yes, my ex made many other arrangements, but I only got one Sarraceniaceae ( Sarracenia, Heliamphora, Darlingtonia) and the one Nepenthes arrangement. She kept the nice ones. I have many boxes full of freeze dried pitchers that I take out and experiment with different types now and then. This is what happens when four Nepenthes maxima plants are allowed to grow too close to one another! A natural arrangment. Take care, Steven Stewart
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Post by picrophyll on Sept 15, 2007 14:49:54 GMT
I've had great success with using silica gel. Placing the cleaned pitcher in a container big enough and filling it with silica gel iside and out. The silica holds the lid in shape and also prevents the wall collapse of the thinner pitchers. I now have the best of them sprayed with gold paint (couldn't afford gold leaf) and mounted in a nice glass case. Cheers P
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Post by glider14 on Sept 15, 2007 14:51:35 GMT
about how long does it take for a nepenthes pitcher dry out? a few weeks?
Alex
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Post by Michael Catalani on Sept 15, 2007 15:22:21 GMT
Steven,
Those are very nice. I haven't seen the freeze dried pitchers painted before.
I don't have my handy ICPS backissue CD handy, but I believe Cliff Dodd had an article many moons ago about freeze drying Nepenthes pitchers. If memory serves, and lately it has been lacking, I believe he mentioned N. lowii as being one of the easier ones to do, which makes sense since it is rather woody and stiff.
I think this would make a good follow up article for CPN, especially the ability or inability of some paints and stains to work out.
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Post by stevestewart on Sept 15, 2007 21:56:29 GMT
Steven, Those are very nice. I haven't seen the freeze dried pitchers painted before. I don't have my handy ICPS backissue CD handy, but I believe Cliff Dodd had an article many moons ago about freeze drying Nepenthes pitchers. If memory serves, and lately it has been lacking, I believe he mentioned N. lowii as being one of the easier ones to do, which makes sense since it is rather woody and stiff. I think this would make a good follow up article for CPN, especially the ability or inability of some paints and stains to work out. You are right Michael. Cliff Dodd showed me several pitchers he had freeze dried, and explained how simple it made the process, so I started doing it with many varieties this way. Freeze drying allows for many pitchers to be placed in a much smaller area at one time. I had always used silica gel, and had been limited to the number of pitchers I could dry at one time. There is also no need to bake used silica gel to dry it after each use, or working to clean the delicate parts of dried pitchers of silica gel dust, when freezing alone is used. Silica gel works to dry faster, but that is the main plus I have found with its' use. As for holding the shape of the pitcher, quick freezing does the same thing, often better. I will need to ask if there is an interest by the editors of the newsletter to warrant an article sometime in the future. I know three times as many ways to make the drying/ coloring process a mess than anyone else I know. I have also found some simple tricks to help salvage that one of a kind favorite, near failure. This forum works great for the time being. Take care, Steven Stewart
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Post by pinglover on Sept 17, 2007 23:14:54 GMT
Women, can't live with us and can't live without us! Oh wait, you are living without us these days! Glad she left you with a few freeze dried by-products of your own plants.
editing to add that I think an article on the process would be really neat to submit.
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Post by stevestewart on Sept 22, 2007 11:32:29 GMT
Great idea! I've found an old pitcher that was put on the compost heap had stayed in pretty good condition some months after it was put there, I wonder if other species than Nepenthes are able to dry and stay in such good condition? I'm almost tempted to take a pitcher of N.sanguinea to University and freeze dry it in liquid nitrogen, to see whether this would give a different result than in a normal freezer. However as my plant is quite young I don't want to give up one of the few nice pitchers! If you are near a university with a science department, it might be worth contacting them regarding access to the liquid nitrogen. It's seriously cool stuff (in more ways than one ) and would require such little effort on their part that I can't see why they would decline...Whilst doing my dissertation I needed to freeze dry maggot samples on a weekly basis. Each time I asked about liquid nitrogen the lab tech would jump at the opportunity to pour some out. Not only can you put things like leaves in for just a few seconds before they become instantly dry and brittle (like in Terminator 2) but once you're done, it's an awesome sight to pour it away. It boils off and smokes and looks quite spectacular! Definately worth investigating IMHO if you can! I've looked at a few back issues of the CPN (very nice to have this on CD!) The earliest article I found on this topic is from 1983 (CPN Vol. 12 n3) by Roger Shivas. He dried some pitchers at -50C in a vacuum in 24 hours. In the photo the pitchers look great. He mentions that they are very brittle and might need to be varnished or to be painted for strength. Another later article (CPNV14n3) by Gregory Shanon writes of using silica gel for several different carnivorous plants. There may be more articles in CPN, I am still reading. It is very easy for me to digress when looking through this CD! I would like to hear how liquid nitrogen works. Let us know if you sacrifice a N. sanguinea pitcher! There are definitely several techniques that can be used for this type project. Each technique seems to have merit with different results. Depending on available tools, individuals can attempt projects and decide for themselves which method works best for them. Take care, Steven Stewart
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Post by ICPS-bob on Sept 22, 2007 16:15:24 GMT
A perhaps more efficient way to find CPN articles is to use the CPN Search page www.carnivorousplants.org/cpn/Search.phpYou can search for words in authors, title, keywords, or species fields. This may not find all of the possible articles, because it is limited by what has been entered in those fields. Since I manage this database, if you come across an article for which a useful keyword is missing, let me know and I will add it to the database. Although not directly relevant to preserving Nepenthes pitchers, I found one additional article about preserving CP: Lamb, Randy (1989) Herbarium samples. Carniv. Pl. Newslett. 18(3):83,85-86
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Post by ICPS-bob on Oct 1, 2007 20:13:37 GMT
I will need to ask if there is an interest by the editors of the newsletter to warrant an article sometime in the future. Steven, I sent an email to CPN Editor Barry and got this reply: So, now you stuck your foot into it and CPN will expect to see a draft article from you soon!
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