Ch'ien Lee at California Carnivores

Yesterday was a big day – the much-acclaimed wildlife photographer and Nepenthes authority Ch'ien Lee gave a presentation at California Carnivores.

Ch'ien Lee at the beginning of his talk.

Ch'ien is an amazing photographer (seriously, go check out his website) and has traveled throughout the remotest parts of Indonesia, Malaysia, New Guinea, and the Philippines. I hope it's not another 6 years before he comes back to the States! His presentation wasn't just pretty pictures either – there were lessons on geography, plate tectonics, and the history of science, along with great little vignettes about everything from orangutans to Cordyceps fungi, all with photo illustrations (of course).

Before and after the presentation, I wandered around California Carnivores, saying hi to the Carnivore Girl and others, and checking out all the sweet plants.

Sweet bromeliad display.

Huge Sarracenia 'Deep Throat' – the pitcher mouth was as wide as my fist.

I was very tempted by this Sarracenia flava with the exaggerated point on its lid.

Damon and Daniela also gave Maria and I a peek at all the new weird flytraps Damon got from Europe last year and which they're starting to put into production.

This is Dionaea 'Sunrise'.

Dionaea 'Werewolf', a tissue culture mutant.

This Dionaea "Mega Traps" was more beautiful than weird.

I wasn't able to buy as many plants as I had planned (I've spent a lot of money getting some camping gear lately), but I did come away with two very cool acquisitions. First, they finally managed to find me a Drosera slackii.

Finally! Can't wait to grow/propagate this guy.

I'd been trying to buy a D. slackii from California Carnivores for the better part of a year, but somehow they never got around to repotting their leaf cuttings. Then they found this beautiful plant somewhere in the back. It's great!

I also picked up this Sarracenia hybrid, because, well, it looked sort of dumb.

I'll need to find a succinct way to refer to this plant.

This is Sarracenia purpurea ssp. venosa var. burkii × (×wrigleyana × leucophylla). When I showed it to my roommate, he laughed out loud. I can't wait to grow this out more to see if the pitchers stay this silly. I really hope so.

Venus flytrap repotting

I got my first Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) from the Cactus Jungle back in October of 2013. Strictly speaking, it was my roommate's plant, but he very quickly gave me full custodial rights. Here we are right out the beginning.

We've come a long way.

Now, I like D. muscipula as much as the next guy, but they don't excite me as much as they excite, say, the Carnivore Girl. So I've sort of ignored this guy for the last 18 months or so, but recently things have started to get ridiculous.

A brief note before we continue – it was much, much too sunny out today to take decent pictures, at least with my phone (which is, at best, a blunt instrument). I was also busy repotting and trying to not get my phone wet and covered in peat. It took some serious Photoshop to get these in even semi-workable condition. Anyway. On to the plants.

A bit crowded in here.

As you can see, things uh, went a little crazy. The Cactus Jungle gets its VFTs from tissue culture, just like almost everyone, because VFTs are really, really cheap from tissue culture. One thing that happens with TC plants is that they can clump like crazy in the first year or two. That appears to be the case with my little plant. Luckily, I had a plan.

I was excited to find this pot.

A big pot. When I first started growing carnivores I came across a photo (which I can't find at the moment) of a nice, wide pot filled entirely with beautiful Venus flytrap mouths, all red and hungry-looking. It was pretty cool, and has been a minor goal in the back of my mind ever since. I picked this pot up at California Carnivores a couple weeks ago specifically for this purpose.

First though, I had to get this thing divided.

Pretty good for a 2-inch pot.

Based on the flower stalks I guessed there were at least 10 big divisions in here. I got it out of the pot and then started spraying it gently with the "center" setting on my garden hose. This started to reveal some nice-looking rhizomes.

They were all pretty healthy.

I then sat there working them apart and hosing them off before depositing them in a bit of a bath to wait it out (I learned this bit from the Carnivore Girl – her pictures are better though).

All taking a bath.

All told there ended up being 11 big divisions and 4 or 5 very small offsets that may or may not survive the stress of repotting. In any case, things are looking much better now.

Now with some room to stretch out.

Can't wait to see what this will look like with a full growing season under its belt.

Now, in order that I not fill a post entirely with over-manipulated, ugly photos, I present for your consideration this Sarracenia oreophila, which is inviting its pollinators to play a very dangerous game.

You can never trust an oreo.

Treacherous.

Sundews Etc. one year in

One year ago today I made my first post here on the blog, about my blooming Drosera capillaris.

D. capillaris, 3-7-2014, from Flowers and D. capillaris "Alabama".

Things were so much simpler back then.

Here are some Fun Facts about the Sundews Etc. blog:

• Around 17% of my traffic comes from Ukraine. Thanks for tuning in, Ukrainian growers!
• Both of my Grower Interviews are among my top 10 most popular posts. I guess I should do some more.
• Based on the labels (to the right) I talk about Drosera burmannii more than any other species (big surprise), but pygmy sundews as a group are a close second.
• There are just shy of 1100 photos of carnivorous plants on this blog for 153 posts, around 7 per post on average.

Now, let's look back at some old posts and see how far we've come.

March

Dionaea muscipula, 3-12-2014, from Things are growing!

April 

Drosera scorpioides, 4-3-2014, from Pygmies and D. adelae.

May

Drosera 'Marston Dragon', 5-26-2014, from The Housefly and the Dragon.

June

Drosera allantostigma, 6-20-2014, from I really love Drosera allantostigma.

July

Drosera capensis 'Albino', 7-4-2014, from Repotting a few sundews.

August

Drosera helodes and Drosera allantostigma, 8-26-2014, from Checking in on various plants.

September

Drosera adelae. 9-11-2014, from Drosera adelae is offset crazy.

October

Praying mantis and Sarracenia leucophylla, 10-25-2014, from A thief among the Sarracenia.

November

Pinguicula laueana × emarginata. 11-21-2014, from Pinguicula roundup, November 2014.

December

Utricularia calycifida flower, 12-6-2014, from A few new blooms.

January

Drosera ultramafica × spatulata, 1-27-2015, from Some progress shots.

February

Drosera venusta, 2-9-2015, from Random pictures of pretty sundews.

Finally, here are a few more posts I noticed looking through the archives that might be of interest to newer reader.

• BACPS Annual Show and Sale Part One: The Juried Show
• Field Trip: California Carnivores
• 100th Post! I photographed the whole collection!
• Field Trip: Nepenthes at the Conservatory of Flowers

And of course, there are Plant Profiles, Cultivation Guides, and Grower Interviews on my Blog Series page.

Thank you all for reading – sharing pictures and talking about my plants with fellow growers makes everything a lot more fun. Here's to another good year!

Revenge of the bugs

I was looking over my plants yesterday and noticed that my prize-winning pot of Drosera burmannii was looking terrible.

What a bummer. My prize-winning plants!

I couldn't figure out what was going wrong...until I looked closer.

This little guy sure just set up shop like it was nothing.

It's a caterpillar! Probably the same species as the one that was inhabiting one of my Drosera binata back in August. I watched it chewing away on my prized plants for a second before extracting it. It did not want to be extracted, but it is a caterpillar and I am a dextrous ape, so it wasn't much of a contest.

It was pretty small, a bit more than a quarter inch (.5 cm) long.

It was able to move very quickly within the little tent it had made among the leaves of my D. burmannii, but once out in the open it was fairly sluggish.

I looked around for signs of any more, but I think this was the only one. Of course, I was left with the problem of what to do with it. Luckily, being a carnivorous plant hobbyist gives you all sorts of ghoulish solutions to bug problems.

I checked back today and yes it did successfully begin digesting.

I hope my D. burmannii are able to bounce back.

- - - - -

P.S. Check out how big my Drosera natalensis seedlings have gotten.

Feeding just makes such a difference.

A thief among the Sarracenia

I went out today to water my Sarracenia and I found a tricky thief laying in wait on Sarracenia leucophylla (Hurricane Creek, AL).

This is a lazy freeloading mantis.

It took a while for me to get a shot in focus and the little guy was getting a little antsy, so I don't have any better close ups. Hope he catches a couple snacks!

Also outside is my Venus fly-trap (Dionaea muscipula), which is all kinds of confused. It's growing a bunch of spring traps and is in flower.

A grim warning to careless insects.

Pretty cute! I should clip it before the seeds form at least.

On the one hand I'm pleased to see it looking so good, since it had kind of been sulking over the summer. On the other hand the flower stalk is draining energy from the plant (I should have clipped it), and winter is coming. Our winters are pretty mild though, and it's catching lots of prey, so I suspect it'll be fine. This is a tissue culture plant too, which might account for some of its weird behavior.

Finally, the Dionaea 'B-52' that I bought from Brie a month or so ago seems to be settling in and has a bit of new growth.

Getting settled in it seems.

Really looking forward to seeing the big time traps in spring!

Some plant progress photos

Decided to share some photos of my plants progressing and growing. It's fun! Although in the case of the VFT it's more "breaking dormancy" and less "getting more mature" but who cares. First, my mixed pot, featuring Drosera allantostigma and the mystery sundew.

Feb. 15, 2014

Apr. 7, 2014

  Sarracenia purpurea also has a few nice photos in my folder.

Jan. 28, 2014

Feb. 15, 2014

March 26, 2014

Finally, Dionaea muscipula.

Dec. 10, 2013

Apr. 3, 2014

Having a camera makes growing plants more fun. Do you have any good progress shots of your plants?

Pygmies and D. adelae

I last posted about my Drosera scorpioides a couple weeks ago. Shortly after that post I made a bit of a mistake when I removed the humidity cover over the tray with the gemmae in it and forgot to replace it for 3 days or so. I lost about a third of the plantlets, but the remainder have put on some decent size.

D. scorpioides. Those cocktail straws are being used to prop up the humidity cover.

That guy in the back is my favorite. He's doing great.

I was kicking myself when I realized  I'd killed some of my gemmae, but mistakes happen, and the rest seem to be doing fine. I'm even holding out hope that a couple of the babies that looked a bit brown are bouncing back. We'll see in another couple weeks.

On the subject of pygmies, my D. allantostigma just continues to look great. I can't wait to get gemmae out of this guy – I really want to have a whole pot of them.

I love the color contrast between the green petioles and red laminae on this D. allantostigma.

 The D. adelae that I got from NG Carnivorous Plants is also doing well. It had some serious red coloration from being right near the lights for a couple weeks, but I think I'm going to put it under some lower lights for a few weeks to see if I can get it to size up a bit. It's taken well to feeding also.

D. adelae showing some color.

 Finally, 3 of my 4 dormant Sarracenia outside have begun to break their dormancy, but I couldn't get any decent pictures yet. So until they get a bit bigger, here's a beauty shot of my VFT, happily munching on some bugs it's caught in the last week or so.

Dionaea muscipula showing its predatory prowess and a nice sun tan.

Tasty.