Plants I haven't mentioned in a while

Sometimes it seems like I'm always posting about the same plants. Today I decided to check out a few species that I haven't paid much attention to lately.

Drosera collinsiae has been looking weirdly unhappy for the past month or two.

At least the Utricularia bisquamata is going strong!

It looks sort of the way it does when it's heat stressed but that's definitely not the problem right now. This has never been a very vigorous plant in my conditions though, so it could be anything really. I wish it would perk up though!

The neighboring Drosera affinis is doing much better.

Quite dainty. I like it.

I don't mention it much, but I really like this species. Its stem-forming habit is great – distinctive, but not ridiculous like Drosera madagascariensis. It's an elegant, delicate-looking plant.

I dug out some of the moss from around Drosera brevifolia so it can have a bit more room now.

Maybe I can feed this guy again soon and encourage flowering.

I hope I didn't damage the roots in doing so. I really need to get this plant to flower one more time so I can start a new pot and throw this one out. That Sphagnum is really awful stuff, very dense and stiff. It just totally swallows up plants and doesn't even look nice.

I got this long-armed form of Drosera capillaris in the last NASC auction because I liked the location data: Tate's Hell Swamp, FL. It's actually a really handsome plant though!

Wonderfully dewy. Great plant!

That's one of the best red colors in my collection, and it's supporting a really large amount of leaves. Very vigorous plant, I like it a lot.

Stem-forming sundews

I noticed something very exciting today – my Drosera cistiflora is forming a stem!

Reach for the stars little guy.

It even looks like it's cheering, hahahah. I probably won't get flowers this year, but I'm very happy with this plant. It's become one of my favorites.

D. cistiflora isn't the only stem-forming South African sundew. The most well-known is probably Drosera madagascariensis, which develops a scrambling habit very quickly.

It's a jungle in here.

In cultivation lots of people will chop them back and take stem cuttings. I haven't done that since I have neither the time nor the space and well, here we are.

Our old friend Drosera capensis is also a stem-forming plant, though it stems out much more slowly than D. madagascariensis.

I'd need to do some trimming to see the stem.

This is a pretty neat plant.

The first photo is my original D. capensis, which has a pretty respectable stem, but it's hidden by a clump of dead leaves and offsets. The lower photo, my D. capensis "broad leaf" is showing its stem a bit better.

Drosera affinis is sort of intermediate between D. madagascariensis and D. capensis in how quickly it forms a stem.

I have high hopes for that flower stalk.

The very similar Drosera nidiformis is much the same, though mine has yet to start stemming out yet. Edit: As it turns out D. nidiformis does not in fact form a stem. I mis-remembered while making this post. Looks pretty good in any case.

These should probably be in a larger pot.

South African sundews are very cool. It's the first region that interested me, and it's one of least-studied. Fernando Rivadavia says that that's because we don't have a carnivorous plant expert in-country right now. If anyone in South African can read these words, go forth and study some plants.

Drosera ×"Andromeda" leaf cutting (and Utricularia graminifolia flower)

Back in January I won an auction for a Drosera cistiflora that is really doing great. The grower from whom I won the D. cistiflora also included (very generously!) two leaves of Drosera ×"Andromeda", which is Drosera schizandra × prolifera. This plant is becoming more common, but it's still fairly rare and definitely a prize in any collection. I started one cutting in water, and the other I placed on some living Sphagnum moss (that I harvested from my Drosera prolifera pot). Just the other day I noticed a strike on the water-float plant!

Leaf strike!

The one on the moss hasn't done anything yet that I can tell. Moss looks great though.

Getting my Sphagnum game in order.

I'm really looking forward to seeing this guy grow in. Then I'll just need to get my hands on some Drosera schizandra and I'll have the full Three Sisters of Queensland collection!

Another exciting development today is this flower stalk on Utricularia graminifolia.

U. graminifolia has very pretty flowers.

Okay, I know it doesn't look like much right now, but right there in the middle of the photo is a flower stalk, I promise. I guess U. graminifolia has settled into its conditions pretty well. Now I want to transition it to a shallower container. I like the idea of a really shallow glass container with a layer of flowering U. graminifolia living on it. We'll see.

Speaking of Utricularia flowers, my Utricularia longifolia flower stalk is getting taller!

This is really a beast of a plant.

It's so hard to photograph that stalk with my phone camera. I'm going to need to get something proper just so I can manually control the point of focus. The tip of the flower stalk is taking on a purple tinge though. Exciting!

Finally, in other flower news there is a stalk developing on Drosera affinis.

It curls up so elegantly.

While I'm happy it's doing so well, I'm frankly not all that optimistic about seed production. I was disappointed with both Drosera madagascariensis and Drosera venusta on that front. The only South African species that have consistently set good seed for me are Drosera capensis (obviously) and Drosera aliciae. We'll see what happens though!

Cultivation Guides: Plant Trading

 This is part of a series of posts describing various aspects of cultivation, which will hopefully be useful to new growers trying to solve the challenges of growing carnivores, and experienced growers who are always looking to improve their collection. The full series can be read here, or by topic on the Series page.

Trading is an essential part of the carnivorous plant hobby. There are only a handful (maybe a dozen) sundew species/cultivars that are consistently available to buy anywhere (online or at nurseries). Nepenthes and Sarracenia are a bit easier to find, if significantly more expensive. Pinguicula are difficult and Utricularia extremely difficult to find for sale, outside of one of two beginner varieties.

So basically once you start trying to expand your collection you're going to have to start trading. At first it can be intimidating – beginners don't have much trading stock, shipping plants bare root seems risky, and the plants you receive in the mail usually look all ratty. Luckily, it's much easier than it seems.

I just completed a trade with a poster on Terra Forums who was initially looking for some Utricularia graminifolia (I've had a pot for a while, though I haven't posted much about it). In order to make everything worthwhile, we wound up with me sending some U. graminifolia, Drosera prolifera, Drosera filiformis Florida Red, and Drosera capensis 'Albino' and receiving Drosera affinis, Pinguicula 1717, Drosera capensis Bainskloof leaf cuttings, and seeds of Drosera sessilifolia and Drosera burmannii Giant Red (Hann River, Kimberley, WA, Australia). This was a very exciting trade for me, since I've been looking for D. capensis Bainskloof and D. sessilifolia for some time.

First up, sending plants. Sundews should be shipped bare root, with as much media rinsed off the roots as possible (this helps prevent accidentally spreading weeds or pests). These should then be wrapped in a portion of wet long-fiber sphagnum, and wrapped again in a damp paper towel. This can be placed in a plastic baggie. See below

D. prolifera plantlet, off to a new home.

D. capensis 'Albino' is the largest plant I shipped today.

Once again, D. filiformis Florida Red proves to be popular trading material.

For terrestrial Utricularia it's a little different. In their case, just dig out a plug of plants and media from your pot, and wrap it in a damp paper towel to hold it together. Then, into the baggie.

This is about the size of the plug of U. graminifolia that I started with.

All wrapped up safe.

Make sure to label all your plants clearly with as much information as possible. Species, cultivar, location data, etc. are all important pieces of information for the future owner. Once you've done that, it's time to pack up and ship.

I use the USPS small flat-rate Priority mail boxes.

Non-flat rate boxes can be affordable, but they're less predictable.

The boxes themselves are free, and shipping is only $5.80 for guaranteed 3-day delivery. That's about the sweet spot for shipping plants – anything quicker is exorbitantly expensive, and going cheaper puts the plants at risk with long shipping times. I find I can usually fit 3-4 smaller-sized plants in one box. If I were shipping mature specimens of larger species I'd have to use a different container.

I like to cushion my boxes with dry paper towels if I don't have other packing materials.

It's always best to ship at the beginning of the week, so that plants don't sit around in a post office over the weekend. Also keep the temperatures in mind – plants can be lost to freezing or baking hot weather on the receiving party's end.

When you receive plants in the mail, it's important to pot them up right away. They're probably stressed out from shipping, and getting them settled in quickly will make a big difference in how quickly they bounce back. It's good to have some media prepared in advance.

Looking forward to seeing this D. affinis get bigger.

This media has a lot of perlite in it for these pings.

One thing that I've come to find really helps my plants recover from any stressful situation, be it shipping or repotting or whatever, is much higher humidity. Therefore I now put a plastic baggie over the pots of my new acquisitions. This is also useful as insurance in case the plants you receive were accustomed to much higher humidity than your setup provides – the humidity tent allows them to be hardened off slowly, rather than potentially shocked to death.

I really like using humidity tents.

Since I received 2 leaf cuttings of D. capensis Bainskloof I decided to start one in water, and one on the media. This provides a bit of insurance in case one technique fails utterly.

I've not had much success with the water-float method and D. capensis previously, but maybe this time will be different.

My fingers are seriously crossed for this leaf cutting.

Finally, shipping seeds. Sundew seeds are tiny, sometimes hilariously tiny, which means shipping them safely can be a challenge. My personal favorite method is to make seed packets out of parchment paper, and envelopes out of printer paper. That way there is no tape or glue to catch the seeds, and the tension of multiple folds keeps the seeds well-contained. The fellow I traded with used pieces of rolled and then folded paper and tape that actually worked pretty well, but I still think the above method is the best I've seen.

Super pumped to be growing D. sessilifolia. Ever since I learned about its relationship with D. burmannii I've wanted some.

This is a different locality than my D. burmannii Humpty Doo, but I suspect it will look fairly similar.

Finally, remember to label your plants! Eventually you're going to reach a point where you no longer remember what's in each pot. Labeling will help you stay organized and make it much easier to trade in the future (nobody wants an unidentifiable mystery plant).

Happy trading.