Continuing the Rehabilitation

[Joseph Clemens]

I will continue to sort through my plant trays and water/fertilize/trim/repot/divide/photograph those surviving plants. Since I have more than ninety trays currently in use, it is probably going to take me a month or more just to sort through them. I will photograph each tray before I work on it, so there is a record of how the plants fared. Then I will compile a report in a web page, then link it here, so we can discuss it.

Here is a photo from greener days to increase the appeal:

[unstuckintime]

I've seen your pictures of the other Pinguicula, the ones that have been dry for sixteen plus months, and I was wondering...after being dry for so long, how long do you keep them wet for? I know with other, more generic, species of Mexian Pinguicula, you keep them wet during the summer, dry during the winter, but clearly these follow a different cycle.

[Joseph Clemens]

Jan 26, 2009 15:20:12 GMT unstuckintime said:

I've seen your pictures of the other Pinguicula, the ones that have been dry for sixteen plus months, and I was wondering...after being dry for so long, how long do you keep them wet for? I know with other, more generic, species of Mexian Pinguicula, you keep them wet during the summer, dry during the winter, but clearly these follow a different cycle.

I actually have allowed my entire collection to dry out, except for the more moisture-sensitive plants, such as Cephalotus, Drosera, Dionaea, Heliamphora, and Nepenthes which have endured, sealed inside Ziploc bags.

Let me clearly explain some of the details:

1)For over six years I have kept all of my CP, Mexican Pinguicula included, in plastic shoe box sized trays. I maintained these trays filled with water, and they were kept in my usual plant-room under cool-white fluorescent lighting.
2)My wife has Multiple Sclerosis and is paraplegic. Sometimes other health issues develop to complicate our lives just a little bit more than the MS alone.
3)Some of these health issues developed: bed sores, pulmonary embolism, and gall stones. While dealing with these complications I decided to temporarily shift my focus to helping my wife with her health issues and decided to use this time to test the ability of my Mexican Pinguicula to endure an extended period of dryness.
4)At the time I was not aware that it would be as long a period as it subsequently became. I thought it might be, at most, twelve months.
5)The media I use consists predominantly of all-mineral ingredients and became completely dry, no noticeable moisture except in the plants themselves.
6)Always before then (for a continuous period of at least six years) I never let any of the trays dry out, more usually I would keep enough water in the trays so the media would be dripping wet (24/7/365), and the plants floating in their pots.
7)After they became dry, many of them continued their blooming cycles despite their lack of free moisture, now, finally most have suspended their flowering, and have shrank down to very small plants.
8)Under what I consider my normal, constantly wet conditions, the plants, for the most part have been shifting from Winter to Summer leaf form, and blooming as customary for each particular variety (some bloom in Summer-leaf, others in Winter-leaf, and some in both). This pattern has continued despite the lack of moisture, only in the past four to six months have most of them finally seem to have stopped flowering and began shrinking down to miniscule plants with only tiny leaves. Though, some, even now looking the same as if they are experiencing only a normal Winter dry spell.

[epbb]

Dear Joseph,

Sorry about your wife health problems. I just hope that she will get better.

Your plant experience illustrate very well that Pinguicula doesn't need to be damp all the time.

[Joseph Clemens]

Howdy Eric,
Thank you, she is doing pretty well, for now.

Yes, it is nice to know that being dry, even for an extended period of time, will not totally destroy most Mexican Pinguicula, but I'd still rather waste the water.

[unstuckintime]

Joseph,
I'm sorry to hear about your wife's health complications, MS is a terrible condition and I'm sorry it has befallen your household.
The only good thing that could be said, though, is you have surely illustrated the robust nature of these plants, thank you for sharing these things with us.

-Carlisle

[Joseph Clemens]

Here is a web page I created to illustrate how many of the plants looked after their sixteen month ordeal.

After Sixteen Months

[Joseph Clemens]

Okay, here's an update to this page of trays being rehabilitated (see Group 2):

After Sixteen Months