Growing from Seed

[matti]

Dose anyone have any tips to grow Darlingtonia from seeds?.

[glider14]

stratify 4 weeks. wait till they germinate. they grow REALLY slow for like...the first year. then adult pitchers(forked tounge ) show up around year 2 or 3. just like a slow growing sarracenia(if you have grown them from seed...)

Alex

[matti]

Yeah, sorry I should of been more specific. I have grown the Genus before but I wanted to know about cultivation methods, time to maturity,soil mixes. Prefferably from a more experianced grower with the genus to get a full perspective rather than a little summary.

[glider14]

im no professional....but i have some success with the genus. i have a few seedlings outside in full sun. still trucking along. it grows in "ball" of straight LFS...some live. grows really slow but it IS growing.

thats about as much insight as i can give you. a more experienced grower will be able to help more.
Alex

[John Brittnacher]

In my experience, Darlingtonia is one of the most difficult CPs to keep alive for an extended period of time if you live in an area that gets hot during the summer. There isn't much I can add to

www.carnivorousplants.org/seedbank/species/Darlingtonia.htm

except to say at home in a terrarium I have kept seedlings alive for years but they never progressed beyond "seedlings". In a cool greenhouse I have gotten plants to be like the ones pictured in the photo but all of the sudden they die, usually in late summer. Also the source of the seeds is very important. Seeds from selfed flowers tend not to have as much vigor as seeds from outcrossed flowers. There may also be source location issues too--you want seeds from low elevation, hot location plants.

[pitcherfreak]

Actually John I tried a packet from the ICPS and didn't get one come up, probably my fault but most of the sarra seed you sent me germinated beside them great was wondering if there is anything I'm likely to be doing wrong. They were under lights in a controlled environment at around 20C any suggestions

[John Brittnacher]

pitcherfreak said:

Actually John I tried a packet from the ICPS and didn't get one come up, probably my fault but most of the sarra seed you sent me germinated beside them great was wondering if there is anything I'm likely to be doing wrong. They were under lights in a controlled environment at around 20C any suggestions

You are the second person today that mentioned problems with Darlingtonia seeds! I presume you stratified the seeds since you said you got germination with the Sarracenia seeds? I can vouch for the viability of all the Darlingtonia seeds with location information as I have seedlings from them. There was one lot without location information I did not purchase myself so can't vouch for them.

[wadave]

Hi Matti,

I've been growing them for about three or so years and I've got to say as they age they do get more touchy.

I've just noticed my cobras have already started to germinate only two weeks after I took them out of the fridge. I stratified them for four weeks in the crisper.

I bought my seed from the VCPS in Jan/feb and put them straight into the cheese bin in the fridge door until I decided to start stratifying them about 6 weeks ago. This way I could time their germination in time for spring.

The seeds were collected by Barry Rice and contained some Othello's, some red x red flowers, and some red x ? flowers.

My tips would be:

Start with fresh seeds.

Stratify the seeds by wrapping them in paper towel sprayed with Fongorid. Place the towel with seeds into a plastic baggie into the crisper as per a normal stratification.

I noticed mould growing in mine but uppon further examination the seeds were untouched and I can only assume the source was food contamination on the paper towel. So absolutely none of my cobra or sarra seeds showed signs of being attacked by mould, and I must have stratified over thirty different packets of seed.

After four weeks take the paper towel out of the baggies and open them up and allow to dry for ease of handling the seed. This way they don't stick to your hand or each other when you are trying to sow them over your mix. I found the best way to do this is to lay the towel on an old newspaper which will soak up extra moisture.

From there I've placed my seed onto pure sphagnum for two reasons, firstly spagnum prevents mould and secondly I don't have to disturb the seedlings until season two when they have a stronger root system.

My seeds are in the greenhouse which gets overhead watering three times a day for a minute at a time with tap water, so they are not sitting in water. I've also rigged up a portable evap cooler to circulate cooled fresh air around the greenhouse which helps keep the mould away.

My older cobras are placed under the benches during the hotter part of the year to help keep the roots cooler.

Keep the ice cubes up during hot weather, just place them evenly around the top of the spagnum. I've also heard you can fill an old plastic orange juice or milk bottle up with pur water, freeze it and then suspend this over your cobras. A small hole in the bottle will allow the melting water to drip over the roots for a longer period during the day.

I hope this helps.

Dave.

[John Brittnacher]

On the ICPS web site I updated the page on growing Darlingtonia and there is a new page on vegetative propagation of Darlingtonia:

www.carnivorousplants.org/seedbank/species/Darlingtonia.htm
www.carnivorousplants.org/howto/Propagation/DarlingtoniaPropagation.php

Are there any comments or suggestions?

[Deleted]

thanks for updating that...its very imformative and its a coincidence that i got my seeds out of the crisper today so i will be using your update to get the seeds going.......thanks again

[jm82792]

I have some with location data,
I am trying ga3 with them I hope I get some luck since I am by natrual site.