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Post by jonnyq on Apr 8, 2010 0:23:34 GMT
Thanks for all of the suggestions, everyone! @ Alexis - I hail from sunny Brooklyn, NY. I thought that was zone 7... perhaps I'm in zone 6? @ JDallas - Thanks for the suggestions! I'll give them a gander! @ Petmantis - Thanks for the link! I've often checked out Mr. Rice's site for the great Dionaea info; I should have been more diligent and looked for the Sarracenia info... (I bought a signed copy of his book last year... Absolutely love it. I think "Savage Garden" could make a nice companion volume.) Alright, venosa it is! Fingers crossed... Cheers!
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Post by jonnyq on Apr 7, 2010 3:00:51 GMT
Having tried my hand at cultivating Dionaea at least through a dormancy and back with success (i.e. the plant seems to be thriving) I'm interested in trying my hand at S. purpurea...
Based on my location (Zone 7) I know that subsp purpurea would probably fare well. Am I correct in assuming that subsp venosa would not?
Also, are there any recommendations on detailed reading regarding Sarracenia cultivation? I've been finding it difficult to find more than a few pages at any source... (My reading's been Dionaea-heavy, and I'd like to read up as much if not more on Sarracenia before I proceed.)
Cheers!
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Post by jonnyq on Apr 7, 2010 2:53:53 GMT
Mr. Stewart has inspired me to try something similar. (Thank you for that!)
I've been trying to secure silica sand around the local supply around here, but all they seem to have is playground sand, which (even with the possibly of rinsing thoroughly) I'm a bit wary of... If the sand is primarily to assist with drainage, does anybody see any issue with substituting perlite for the sand in the 1:1 peat moss mixture?
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Post by jonnyq on Apr 7, 2010 2:50:10 GMT
So I picked one of these up a few weeks back... and I just have to say how pleased I was with the fantastic communication and accomodation of the two gents that run FTS. Because of the horrendous postal service around here, I asked if they would be willing to delay shipping until a certain day of the week when I could guarantee that someone would be able to receive the package. They were both patient and had fantastic communication, even though one of the gents was away on a trip... and they filled my order perfectly to my satisfaction. So *tips hat* thanks again! As to the plant, it's doing quite well; there's an abundance of traps of varying sizes; the traps and leaves are almost entirely red. A few of the newer traps have some green around the leaf edges, but overall, the plant is shockingly red. Never having had the pleasure of raising an Akai Ryu, I'm very, very pleased with this addition. The traps do respond quickly when triggered; I found that the leaves seam more pliable (possibly thinner) than the leaves of my dentate and typical traps. This may be because the plant is younger(?) but it actually seems to "fold" itself around prey and seal more quickly than my greener traps. (Again, that might just be my perception.) Highly recommend!
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Post by jonnyq on Mar 2, 2010 3:06:20 GMT
I just wanted to thank everyone for their great advice and observations... In following the advice here, I did indeed move my flytrap outdoors... I began by acclimating the plant to non-office temperatures by moving it and the daylight-bulb lamp to a windowsill at my house. After half a week of the lowered temperatures, I moved it outdoors to acclimate it to the natural daylight cycle. I am thrilled to say that it flourished far more than I would have anticipated for a CP growing in sunny Brooklyn. On December 1st, I used the guide at www.world-of-carnivores.com/flytrap_fridge.html (more or less) to put my barerooted trap to fridge dormancy. (I hadn't realized that the plant was grown in pure long-fiber spaghnum. It was trickier to bare-root than I thought.) In either case, I check on the plant once every three weeks or so. It seems to be doing well. Surprisingly, no sign of overt fungus, though there's a little browning around the edges of the leaf tips, which is to be expected. There are two new leaves that have begun to develop, but clearly they're developing extremely slowly, which is as expected. So far, so good, and thank you to all of you for the insights and advice, and for the continued discussions and topics that I lurk around and read when I'm not doing my infrequent posting... (And this is off-topic, but some of you might find amusing what I named my ship on Star Trek: Online. The rest of you might simply roll your eyes, but I hope that either way, this will taken as the homage it's meant to be.) (I'm hoping to name the next ship USS Nepenthes.) Thanks again!
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Post by jonnyq on Mar 2, 2010 2:46:44 GMT
That looks fantastic... I've been thinking about trying my at growing some VFTs outdoor in a ceramic pedestal bowl, but wasn't sure if it would be possible, mainly because I wasn't sure how to regulate their water level... Do you mind if I ask what your watering strategy is for this setup?
And that's pure long-fiber sphagnum as your medium?
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Post by jonnyq on Oct 30, 2009 1:29:10 GMT
Greetings, all, Quick dormancy question from a novice... I've read that a good sign of dormancy is the yellowing/browning of leaves, slowing of trap response, slower leaf/trap growth and growth of the ground-hugging winter leaves, with the broader petioles. I've got a plant that's growing in a climate-controlled office. (Actually, she's got about 11-13 leaves, which means that she's split into 2, no?) The temperature fluctuates between 70F and 80F daily, but rarely below, and never above. I'm using a CFT daylight spiral bulb (~10W if memory serves) at a desklamp on a timer. I started it out at 14 hrs/day (on at 2AM, off at 4PM), but have slowly been reducing the # of hours as the winter approaches to try to approximate the seasonal light change. (Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about the average temperature.) I've read that there's little I can do to "trigger" dormancy, and that the plant will enter it whenever its cycle dictates... and that trying to "force" dormancy by doing the prescribed [plant + rinsed roots + damp sphagnum + dampish paper towel + ziploc + refrigerator] could kill it if it's not ready, yes? Well, it's almost November... Growth of new leaves has indeed slowed, though none of the newest seem to have the wide petioles of the older leaves... Other than that, most of the leaves seem healthy and green; only one or two of the older leaves have yellowing, and that's mostly at the margins of the petioles. Has anybody found that steady year-round warm temperatures "confuse" the dormancy cycle? Is my plant acting normally, i.e. "on schedule" and I'm just being paranoid? Any recommendations of how/when I should proceed? (Thanks again, everyone, for all of the fantastic information here!)
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Post by jonnyq on Oct 30, 2009 1:16:33 GMT
Greetings, I just wanted to begin by thanking everyone on the board for their helpful comments; I've used the information I've garnered from here and Barry Rice's wonderful book to help me as I try to become better at raising carnivorous plants... A while back I tried growing Dionaea from seed... All was going well until I switched jobs... and killed my seedlings in an embarassing transport mishap that I'm frankly too ashamed to describe. I did try growing new seedlings at my new job, but ran into fungus/mold problems that killed the sprouting seedlings, due to poor air circulation. I decided to try my hand at raising at adult plant, to see if I could at least keep that alive. Well, I bought a plant from, yes, Lowes a few months back and brought it to my new job. When I purchased it, it had only three leaves, but I'm thrilled to say that it's doing rather well, thanks largely to the advice and information I've gotten here... An ex-cricket. The dime's for size comparison. The leaf to the right is one of the original three leaves that it had when I purchased it. The vibrant one on the left is one of the newest from the past month or so. I'm trying to feed it about once a month, two crickets or so at a time. My coworkers enjoy hearing the tidbits of Dionaea knowledge that I've garnered from here as I explain why it's bad to overfeed them, why it's very bad to trigger traps for amusement's sake, how most of the energy comes from photosynthesis, and not the insects themselves, etc. So, thank you so much! I look forward to continuing to read and learn more... I'm looking forward to attempting to keep my plant alive through a dormancy this winter, as well as trying my hand at leaf-pullings without killing my plant... Will ask a few questions to leverage the odds in my favor... Thanks again!
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Post by jonnyq on Sept 23, 2008 15:13:38 GMT
Good morning, folks,
So, unfortunately, that particular seedling didn't make it... It ended up rotting the whole way through, and I was hoping that it was an isolated incident, but now another seedling (also slow-growing: seed leaves only, no trap leaves) is also starting to brown/rot from the leaf tips inward...
Because the growing conditions are reasonably identical for all of my seedlings, I'm wondering if this could be a sign of overwatering/root rot... I've done a forum search for "root rot" and found a post by NaN:
This advice seemed to apply to older plants... Any recommendations for seedlings? (I'm guessing that repotting/inspecting would likely kill them...?) Are there any links/articles that one would recommend to further enlighten on the subject of root rot? (I tried Dr. Rice's FAQ, which had a page about Drosophyllum.)
California Carnivores did have this to say:
My planters are approximately 2" high, and I try to keep the water level in the tray at about 1/2"... Does this sound too deep to those of you with experience?
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Post by jonnyq on Sept 9, 2008 23:49:47 GMT
Hi Scott, thanks for your time! it says "basal end of the rhizome", not basal end of the leaf, so I dont think its referring to which end of the leaves turn brown first.. its referring to one end of the rhizome. Ahhh... Thanks for the clarification! I hope so... The thing that concerns me is that of the two seedlings that were sown (and germinated) at the same time, one has two full traps + a developing third, while this one has one full trap + a developing second + dying cotelydons. Methinks I may have done something wrong along the way, but time will tell, I suppose... Still, your answer is reassuring... Cheers.... It was sown on June 26th, and started to develop its first trap leaf at the beginning of August. Thanks again!
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Post by jonnyq on Sept 9, 2008 20:02:42 GMT
Warning: Newbie question ahead.
Greetings,
So, the two cotelydons on one of my seedlings seems to be rotting from the tips of the leaves back towards the center of the plant... The seedling has one formed trap leaf (half-open), and the early stages of a second trap leaf.
I tried doing some searching, and in the abstract for Cornelia Smith's "Development of Dionaea Muscipula. II. Germination of Seed and Development of Seedling to Maturity" (Botanical Gazette, Vol. 91, No. 4. (1931), pp. 377-394), it says:
(I couldn't access the rest of the article from here...
Update: I've got the article through JSTOR and am reading it through, but would still appreciate opinions...)
If I'm reading this correctly (and I very well may NOT be) the normal sloughing would start at the end of the leaves that are attached to the plant (that was basal, yes?) rather than at the tips (that was apical, yes?) as I'm seeing here, no? Am I killing this seedling with my inexperience?
(For what it's worth, the other nine are doing rather well so far... One has two fully-open bright red and green trap leaves with a third on the way, and the others are all still developing, as they were planted almost a month later...)
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Post by jonnyq on Sept 8, 2008 17:04:05 GMT
Hey there blokeman, greetings from across the border in NY! Quite a list! Cheers!
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Post by jonnyq on Sept 4, 2008 16:22:19 GMT
These are wonderful, thank you! (Now I just need to learn about each of these species...) Cheers!
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Post by jonnyq on Sept 2, 2008 20:52:03 GMT
... ...have the images been removed? I'm afraid that they're no longer viewable (at least not at the time of this posting...) Am I too late?
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Post by jonnyq on Sept 2, 2008 20:50:31 GMT
Well, I'm glad that at least one plant is alive... I hope it flourishes! Any recent pictures?
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