rollingstone
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since July 2009
Posts: 236
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Post by rollingstone on Mar 19, 2006 5:33:53 GMT -5
Raising carnivorous plants has been a fascination of mine basically forever. Limited by living in a climate that has a long winter period, and not having anything better than a grow-light set-up in the basement (which gets taken over for raising bedding plants each winter/spring), this is not something I'm ideally set up for. But I make do with what I have, and overall it's been enough to do okay with. What does this have to do with rocks? Nothing really, except that it gives me something to do when the rocks are slow. These pics aren't the best (make mental note to take more and better pics), but I hope they give an idea of what I'm talking about. First pic -- me with a Nepenthes -- a tropical plant with pitchers that lure and eat insects. I bought this locally last summer, and have not really given it the best attention, because I figured this tropical plant was ultimately doomed under any kind of set-up I could offer. But nine months later it is doing surprisingly well. I should give it more attention, particularly now that it needs repotting.    I guess the temperate-climate equivalent to Nepenthes is the pitcher plant. I have several kinds growing, here's some pics: Northern (purple) pitcher plant (Sarrencia purpurea) -- this is native to northern North America. Here's a pic of it blooming in spring:  Here's a hybrid pitcher plant that is more suited to the southern US, but can perform okay in places with harsher winters:  This is a butterwort (Pinguicula). I have a difficult time keeping these growing long-term. They seem to do very well for 6 months or so, then gradually die-off on me. I need to better figure out how to grow them long-term before I try again.  Here are some sundews (Drosera). There are many types of these, some are perennial, some are annual. I have a bunch of different ones growing, but the one in this pic (which I belive is Drosera adelae) is by far the most vigorous, and has proven the most successful long-term for me.  This is Drosera capensis. It is supposed to be one of the easiest Drosera to grow, and it has done well for me, but I'm a bit of a newbie on this one, and have only been growing it for less than a year (I'm trying four varieties), so I can't yet say how this performs for me.   And here's D. trayci, eating some fungus gnats. This one forms a winter hibernation bud, and I've had real trouble getting it out of winter hybernation and back into active growth.  Oh, and here's a pic of a Venus Fly Trap -- everyone's favourite carnivorous plant! -- hmm, doesn't seem to link, I'll try this again tomorrow. Now it's tomorrow  , hope this works!    Original code:
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/rollingstone/carnivorous%20plants/Mar1006Nepenthes1.jpg[/img]
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/rollingstone/carnivorous%20plants/Mar1006Nepenthes10.jpg[/img]
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/rollingstone/carnivorous%20plants/Mar1006Nepenthes5.jpg[/img]
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/rollingstone/carnivorous%20plants/oldphotoSpurpureainbloom.jpg[/img]
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/rollingstone/carnivorous%20plants/Nov1404Sxformosa3.jpg[/img]
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/rollingstone/carnivorous%20plants/feb104butterwort2.jpg[/img]
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/rollingstone/carnivorous%20plants/Jan705Dadelae2.jpg[/img]
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/rollingstone/carnivorous%20plants/Jan705Dcapensis2.jpg[/img]
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/rollingstone/carnivorous%20plants/Dtraycimeetsfungusgnats.jpg[/img]
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/rollingstone/carnivorous%20plants/bigjawslittlejaws.jpg[/img]
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/rollingstone/carnivorous%20plants/sep3004VFT1.jpg
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crotalus23
off to a rocking start
Member since March 2006
Posts: 6
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Post by crotalus23 on Mar 19, 2006 6:27:55 GMT -5
Great plants Don - I think I may give a Nepenthes a try looking at how well yours is doing. I also always figured they wouldn't thrive in "household" humidity. There is a place here in Ohio you should check out, The Glasshouse Works, they have many types of Nepenthes. They have a website : www.glasshouseworks.comDon't know about shipping plants to Canada. Jim |
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Post by sandsman1 on Mar 19, 2006 6:32:02 GMT -5
dam there pretty nice don i like um---- i bet you dont have any pesty flys buzzin around your place hahaha
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Post by Tweetiepy on Mar 19, 2006 9:42:04 GMT -5
Don,
I had flytrap a long time ago - the tiny ones you buy at the supermarkets, I was trying to feedit myself, so i swatted a housefly and fed it to the plant - well I guess it was too big of a mouthful cuz the thing died trying to digest the fly!! then I had kids & the plants all were trashed because they died - I have no luck with pets or plants
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Post by Cher on Mar 19, 2006 11:07:56 GMT -5
Wow Don that Nepenthes in your first pics is awesome, very cool. What the heck do you feed those things?
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Post by xenaswolf on Mar 19, 2006 12:18:56 GMT -5
Don, Spacemanspliff is into growing plants, I'll make sure he sees this thread. The old food and beverage manager at our job was all into carnivorous plants, but he quit and I don't know how to get in touch with him....Looks like you are doing pretty well up in that cold climate.
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Post by joe on Mar 19, 2006 12:21:33 GMT -5
Those are awesome Don! They really are beauties.
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rollingstone
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since July 2009
Posts: 236
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Post by rollingstone on Mar 19, 2006 12:43:45 GMT -5
Okay, I've fixed up the flytrap links.
Jim, one note of caution is that none of these are grown in household humidity (except the flytraps when they are moved outside each summer). The Nepenthes are under grow lights in a 10 gallon aquarium, with the top almost completely covered with transparent plastic, so the humidity is near 100%. The pitcher plants, sundews, butterworts and cobra lily are also all grown in covered aquariums under grow lights, except in winter when I move them beside basement windows to simulate "winter" (still covered though).
Thanks for the greenhouse link -- it certainly looks extensive though a bit cumbersome to find my way around -- I'll get back to it for a more thorough look.
Cher, for the most part I don't feed these. The sundews and butterworts catch things like fungus gnats if those are around, and the flytraps feed themselves plentifully outside in the summer, but the pitcher plants, Nepenthes and whatever else seem to do fine without food. In the past I have put the pitcher plants outside for the summer and they caught lots of insects, but they got really smelly when I brought them inside in the fall, so I don't do that anymore.
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Post by stoner on Mar 19, 2006 14:03:59 GMT -5
Nice hobby Don. And nice pics too. You had mentioned in another thread about the gro-lights and I was wondering what you were using them for. And of course being from SF, my first thought was you were growing your own stash!
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Post by krazydiamond on Mar 19, 2006 16:38:42 GMT -5
wow! those are amazing plants and superior photos, Don! i'm impressed! some of those look like they are not native to this planet!!! way cool!
KD
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WyckedWyre
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since April 2007
Posts: 1,391
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Post by WyckedWyre on Mar 19, 2006 18:35:37 GMT -5
Very cool. I'd love to be able to grow carnivorous plants, but the humidity is too low here in the Southwest. My house is so small I end up giving most of my plants away when they outgrow their alotted spaces. I do have a Hindu Rope Vine that I've had for about 25 years now.  S |
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Post by LCARS on Mar 20, 2006 12:43:55 GMT -5
I've been growing Venus flytraps for awhile! I just got finished repotting some that weren't doing so well up until I got my hands on them. There's a few good tricks to getting them to thrive & there's also alot of misconception out there about growing them. As with anything, you have to read read read read about them from reputable sources if you want good results. Most people are only interested in watching them eat bugs & then neglect the proper growing conditions & care of them so they soon die. My only REAL problem with them has been BUGS! Yes, ironically, they are quite succeptible to aphid & Moss gnat infestations.  I have a pic somewhere of one that I got from a garden store during it's first summer with me. It's one that I rescued from my brother recently and now i'm trying to bring it back. He wasn't giving it enough light so the leaves & traps went all spindly and it wilted.  That's a tall flower stalk in the middle. Not very impressive & it retards the growth of the leaves & traps if you let it grow. I usualy prune it unless I feel the plant is healthy enough to survive flowering but I have never gotten viable seeds from one yet, probably because the VFT's are all cultured from tissue & lack the full set of genetic instructions. |
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rollingstone
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since July 2009
Posts: 236
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Post by rollingstone on Mar 20, 2006 17:06:57 GMT -5
Hey LCARS, if you hand pollinate the flowers you should be able to get lots of seed. I haven't had any trouble getting them to set seed even when the parents used for pollination have just been divisions from one original bulb. It takes a few months for the seed to ripen, then the seed head will be a small black case several mm across. Bust it open and you should find lots of shiny trianglular seeds. Plant them and they sprout in a couple weeks to a month. It takes forever to get them to adult size from seed though -- I think it takes seven years though I've never bothered growing the seedling plants for more than a year or so. Neat novelty, but bulb division is the way to go to increase plant numbers and get them to adult size within a year.
Fungus gnats can be easily controlled with pesticides that contain "Dursban" -- I use "fungus gnat powder" if they become a problem. Just sprinkle it on the sphagnum and water it in, it will kill the larvae and lasts for months. Doesn't hurt the flytraps at all either, at least in moderate amounts.
Aphids are more of a problem. Insecticides seem to kill all the vegetation, even "mild" ones like Safer's soap. The plants regrow from the bulbs, but who needs the setback? You can hand treat them with a q-tip dipped in alcohol if you only have a few plants to treat. A recent article in the Carnivorous Plant Newsletter says that the insecticide "Imidacloprid" is good for most carnivorous plants, likely even for flytraps, but I haven't tried it myself.
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Post by rockyraccoon on Mar 20, 2006 17:43:46 GMT -5
don i found this to be totally enjoyable. made me want some of these plants really bad until you said they stink from rotting insects! wonder how many mosquitos one of those venus fly traps could eat in a day?
kim
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beechcomber
spending too much on rocks
Summertime!
Member since March 2006
Posts: 345
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Post by beechcomber on Mar 20, 2006 21:44:36 GMT -5
very interesting plants! The pitcher plant especially!! I can't keep plastic plants alive...I'll stick to rocks!
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Post by rockds on Mar 21, 2006 1:09:06 GMT -5
those are cool don, never seen the sundews before, they look great. Do you put them out side during the summer?
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rollingstone
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since July 2009
Posts: 236
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Post by rollingstone on Mar 22, 2006 2:39:28 GMT -5
rockds, I don't normally feed the sundews or put them outside because I find the feeding makes them look kind of messy, and the balls of sticky "dew" (which trap the insects) form best under high-humidity environments like a mostly-closed terrarium. Some species of sundew are native to sphagnum bogs around here, so I guess they can do fine outside, I just prefer to keep them in a controlled environment.
For the most part sundews are rather small plants, but they have an advantage in the carnivorous plant world in that most of them can be grown to maturity in one year from seed (unlike the multiple years needed for many other carnivorous plants, ie 10 years for a cobra lily). I started most of my sundews from seed I purchased from the seedbank of the International Carnivorous Plant Society (you have to join to purchase from their seedbank). Sundew seed is so fine it is almost invisible, I'm amazed it actually grows!
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Post by LCARS on Mar 22, 2006 23:38:40 GMT -5
don i found this to be totally enjoyable. made me want some of these plants really bad until you said they stink from rotting insects! wonder how many mosquitos one of those venus fly traps could eat in a day? kim You would need ALOT of flytraps to put a dent in the mosquito population! On average, a trap only works 2-3 times before dying & a plant with 7-10 active traps will eat about 1 bug every two weeks during the summer. B.T.I. (Bacillus Thurengiensis Israelensis) is much more effective but you have to disperse it in the water before the buggers hatch. I've done alot of research on BTI for my last job & I would say it's definately the way to go since it's 100% natural harmless bacteria that only attacks mosquito & black fly larvae. VFT's are not as effective a means of reducing flying insects as simply closing the screen door.  |
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wades
starting to spend too much on rocks
Gottfried Reiche (1667-1734)
Member since February 2006
Posts: 202
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Post by wades on Mar 23, 2006 8:42:31 GMT -5
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Carnivorous Plant FAQ at www.sarracenia.com/faq.html. There's a lot of fascinating information there. |
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rollingstone
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since July 2009
Posts: 236
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Post by rollingstone on Mar 24, 2006 4:42:25 GMT -5
Wades, yes, that site is a gem of information and photos. The link you posted doesn't seem to work for me though, the one I use (which looks pretty much identical, except for the period at the end) is: www.sarracenia.com/faq.html |
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, hope this works!
S
