Not every plant can be a
Drosera spiralis. There are a handful of plants in my collection that always seem like they're in a slump.
Drosera collinsiae is definitely like that.
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| On the plus side, that utric looks great. |
This is a very handsome plant when it's happy, but it just seems to get deflated by everything. Heat for sure, and Pyrethrin, but also the Bayer 3-in-1, which didn't seem to affect any other plant in the collection. I can't remember the last time this one had more than 3 dewy leaves.
Another consistently wimpy plant is
Drosera ×
snyderi, which is
D. dielsiana ×
nidiformis.
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| They actually look pretty decent right now. |
There were originally 5 plants in each pot. The one on the right clearly had a bit of a crash recently, but all of them look super set back whenever I have to spray for bugs or whatever. Funny plant.
A very funny case is
Drosera schizandra. I've got two pots, and they're looking pretty different right now.
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| Spinach anyone? |
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| There's a little pup in the bottom of the pot actually. |
They're also looking pretty different than they looked
back in January. I don't think there's been enough heat to cause a crash like this, and nothing else weird has happened. Who knows? This is a famously temperamental species, after all.
This next is a funny one. I got this
Pinguicula esseriana from
California Carnivores a
year ago. It certainly hasn't grown, and looks to have shrunk back a bit in fact.
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| Little guy is lost down in there! |
I don't know why that would be the case, because a bit later I received some small
P. esseriana starts, and those are doing much better.
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| Look at all the little babies. |
I should really just scoop out that first one and put it in the second pot to free up some space in the tray. I wish it would put on some size!
On a more hopeful note, the itty bitty
Cephalotus follicularis I got in a trade a bit ago seems to be settling in rather than dying off.
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| We've got a long road to go, but we're off to a good start! |
I believe that's a new pitcher on the upper right, and it's certainly a new leaf on the lower right. Progress!
The
Drosera hamiltonii are a funny case. These look absolutely terrible, right?
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| Sooooo ugly right now. |
The thing is, they're just fine. I fed a bunch of plants (including these) a week ago or so, and
D. hamiltonii take forever to look good after feeding. The thing is, when they look good they look
really good. Weird little sundews.
Finally, a pygmy that seems to have no idea whether or not it likes me.
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| I love all pygmies, even the fussy ones. |
Drosera spilos is the only pygmy I've got that seems to go dormant at all in my conditions, and as you can see there are a couple of them that are dormant right now, in the middle of winter. Amusingly, this is as good as this pot has ever looked. No idea why. Sorry you don't like it here as much little guy!
Plants are weird.
My D. schiz and my D. 'Andromeda' both looked terrible in November. I decided, as a last ditch attempt, to put them into their own little terrarium in some sphagnum and put them mostly out of the way of the lights. Now, there are a bunch of little plants started up and they really seem to have improved. I honestly don't know why they crashed, but that seemed to have helped significantly. Before that, they had been doing just fine.
ReplyDeleteD. hamiltonii is a funny plant. I really should search for another one. I used to grow it and it would do the same thing as yours. It would be growing fine, then look terrible, then come back. Eventually, it died off, but it was always a neat plant.