Death machines with dying fall foliage

The colors in those pictures is outstanding James! I need to pull this thread back up in about another month when the only colors I'll be seeing are browns and white! LOL

Let's try Robin. Time for dividing/planting is February. Get with me then.

Those are gorgeous! I love the big eaters but they don't love me,lol.

The cut off yellow ones come from SW Georgia brybry. It is Flava, a big one.

They WILL NOT do inside. Find the lowest hottest most stagnant most humid full sun spot on earth and they will love you.(south Mississippi lol)
Like a greenhouse full of water containers completely closed off in full sun dawn/dusk @100% humidity and 125F. Such conditions are what I used to grow them in to maximize their color for marketing and timing for spring sales.. Sounds cruel but they thrived in that steam bath.
They will do fine anywhere in the SE US outside with at least 6 hours of direct sun.

We thoroughly enjoyed our California bug-eating plant experience. However, they didn’t thrive. Yours are lovely at every stage.

It must be the clear dry air that allows such intense solar radiation Pat.
They did well in an enclosed greenhouse with full Georgia sun that stayed consistently over 120F during higher sun.
However the moisture content also stayed above 90% humidity. So the solar radiation is less intense.
Central Florida solar radiation is more intense than Georgia's and they suffered down there too.

There is only one Sarracenia variety(the Minor) that naturally occurs up to 100 miles south of the Georgia state line.
I don't grow them anymore as they sold fast and I ran out. They take high solar radiation levels.

The S. Minor is even more dastardly, it has deceptive clear spots(false windows)that the insect tries to escape thru.
The insect's efforts only end up wasted and the tired insect falls down to the acid vat only to be dissolved alive as all Sarracenias do.

This is the S. Minor with the windows. There is a giant version of Minor found in the Okefenokee swamp(S. Minor var. Okefenokensis):



S. Minor var. Okefenokensis with charcoal tops. Evil looking and cold blooded:

jamesp apparently bug juice makes for colorful fall foliage in the carnivorous plants.

So Jean, I ordered 12 varieties, 5 tubers of each variety about 5 years ago. 60 tubers at a cost of $2000 ! From a sarracenia hybridizer in North Carolina. The only specification was "the fastest, biggest most robust sarracenias he had".
Looks to be that the investment has done well, guessing there is 50 of each variety now. So from 60 to about 600 in 5 years !

Well many of his hybrids just happened to have purple in them. I never had a sarracenia with purple in them. And only had two hybrid seedlings (that were very unique and different) in 40 years. So these three new seedlings were a big victory. And the seedlings formed in the row of my plants growing directly next to this row of new hybrids, close proximity for hybrid pollination....And my intent was to build an inventory of robust large sarracenia anyway. But never thought crosses would seed out and survive. There will be a good chance that more seedling hybrids will rise up in the next few years. I can assist the delicate seedling process by putting fresher/less populated repotted pots next to these two rows to provoke seedling survival.

So hopefully what you learned about hybrid vigor will result in some giant man eating pitchers lol ! Like 15 feet tall and 2 feet in diameter !

The new hybrids are to the left of the red dairy crate mid way. The row of plants to the right will be hop-scotched over to the right to next pan over to leave an empty row next to the new hybrids. Fresh pots of peat put in that empty pan planted with the seedlings and some of the new desirable hybrids. These new pots will accept seedlings better.



Then the empty row 3 over from the dairy crate will also be filled with fresh pots to be planted with the brought in hybrids providing more habitat for potential seedlings. The 2nd row from the dairy crate is my old stuff, that is where the 3 new seedlings came up.



The top row is the newly brought in(5 years ago) pot-buster plants. The purple/red tint is noticeable. The lower row is my old robust bright(native) stock. My old stock is the best of many plants. I trashed many over the years due to poor performance or lack of color. The bright yellow Flava is missing in the old plant lower row but the new hybrids are mostly based on Flava. Flava has the 'beast' gene. It is native mostly to south Georgia. Flava is said to have over 300 hybrids. (so they say).



So the goal is to produce some giants. I could perform manual pollination too. Never have but can learn. Obviously somebody is cross pollinating, who it is may never be known ! These winter seed pods will be opened up and the seed WILL be collected today. In this case I can germinate the seeds under controlled conditions and will greatly increase the new hybrid rate. And many of the plants will be sterile and produce wispy infertile seeds or none at all.