Flowers in spring!

I've come to appreciate the effect of seasons on my growing environment more lately. I used to think that the fact that I grow under lights in my garage meant that my plants didn't really experience seasonality, considering the fairly stable temperatures and light quality. However, I'm starting to see that, for example, there is a distinct uptick in flowering into the spring. Let's look at it!

My Drosera felix is putting up a second flower stalk.

Look at the little fuzzles.

This plant has a special place in my heart. It's small and unassuming, but it's just such a trooper, and there's something so adorable about it. I've gotten some seed from the first stalk too!

Pinguicula 'Pirouette' is blooming for the first time.

This is such an elegant plant.

I love ping flowers. This one looks so demure as it's getting ready to bloom.

I've also gotten my first flower on Drosera mannii.

Don't mind all the Utricularia bisquamata.

It looks like I've missed the first couple blooms, but I'll have to keep an eye out for it because apparently D. mannii has blooms bigger than the plants themselves.

Got a Drosera oblanceolata flower stalk!

I like how smooth the flower stalk is. That's not super common in Drosera.

I got this plant in winter, but I think the warmer temperatures are benefiting it a lot. It's looking better than it has since I got it. Nice plant!

Drosera collinsiae is starting to bloom again.

Finally we've got dew on this guy.

I'm almost tempted to trim the flower stalk, since this is the best the plant has looked in months and I don't want it to decline. However, I really want seed, so I think I'll let it go. The last flower stalk aborted.

New flower stalk on Drosera 'Emerald's Envy'!

The plant this stalk is coming from is just doing great.

This particular plant has never flowered before, and it looks like a good one. Gonna get some good seed off this one.

Drosera aliciae is trying to flower again.

Come on D. aliciae, we believe in you.

This plant really struggles. It's aborted the last 3 or 4 flower stalks it's attempted. I can't say why. Here's hoping this one takes.

Now comes to the bit of the post where I do some real bragging. First up, look at this Utricularia longifolia.

So many flowers!

You see that flower in the center of the photo? That flower opened on February 27th. We're closing in on two months for that one flower. There are 14 flowers open on this plant now, and it'll probably be in bloom for at least another couple months. There are a lot of plants I love, but U. longifolia is one I actually admire. It's just an exquisite plant.

Finally, look at this.

I'm really really excited.

See that brown growth there? That's a flower stalk. A flower stalk on Utricularia praelonga. This plant is known for rarely flowering in cultivation, and no one really knows why. Go ahead and do an image search, there are very few photos of it. I am so stoked on this. This is the most exciting thing since my winter-growing sundews woke up. More photos to come!

Spring is great.

Some plants just struggle

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.

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.

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.

Spinach anyone?

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Response to Take Down Garden Spray

As you may remember, I've been using Take Down Garden Spray on my collection recently to combat aphids. The active ingredients are pyrethrin and canola oil, so it's pretty gentle stuff. Still, some plants have reacted better than others.

Drosera collinsiae and Drosera ×snyderi have definitely not appreciated the applications.

Don't look so down buddy.

Fried! Frazzled! An unhappy plant.

A handful of other plants have had a similar, but less severe, reaction. I'm using a 2% solution right now, and this is after I applied it twice in 5 days, and then didn't apply for a week. To be fair though, these two plants were both slow to settle into my conditions, and have both seemed a bit on the fragile side.

Other plants, like Drosera anglica CA × HI, have totally taken the spraying in stride.

I know I can always count on this guy to do well.

It's even blooming again! It bears repeating that this is one of the most vigorous plants in my collection as well. It just seems like the finicky plants are going to be finicky, and the robust plants won't mind (my Drosera adelae has also been fine, for example). It's not a surprising finding, but it's good to know.

On a related note, my Drosera spiralis is definitely not phased. Not only is it flowering again, but it's put out an offset for the first time!

Look at those cute little baby leaves.

I'm really inordinately fond of this species. It just does so well for me, and gives me all sort of nice surprises. Looking forward to the little guy growing up a bit.

Of course, none of this has addressed whether or not the aphids are being beaten back. Well, I think they are? I hope they are? I'll need to apply a few more times before I make a solid decision. However, I am considering going systemic pretty soon. My patience is wearing thin. We'll see!

Utricularia graminifolia flower and other cool stuff

Back at the beginning of March – 3 months ago – I first noticed a flower stalk forming on my Utricularia graminifolia. Yesterday it finally popped its first flower.

Neat little flower. Foliage is looking pretty good too.

So cute! U. graminifolia is considered one of the more fiddly terrestrial/semi-aquatic utrics. I grow mine in an undrained glass container about 18 inches from my lights. I let the water pretty much evaporate all the way before refilling almost to the top of the container (covering the plant entirely). I've heard of several people using this method to successfully grow U. graminifolia to flower. There are several more flower stalks coming up, which is exciting. One thing to note when using this method – when you first plant your plug of U. graminifolia there's nothing holding the peat together, so watering really stirs it all up. The peat settles after a day or so. Once the plant fills in the container watering isn't so much of an issue anymore.

 I've also got a flower coming up on my Drosera collinsiae (Fairyland, RSA).

Very nice rosette of leaves on this plant.

This is a really handsome plant that hasn't gotten much attention on the blog. It started to flower once before, but I clipped the stalk when I noticed aphids on it. Now we're flowering again and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this one won't be similarly afflicted.

These next two photos I recently posted on my Instagram, but I decided to share them here too because not everyone has Instagram. First up, look at this wild picture of my Drosera burmannii (Hann River, Kimberley, Western Australia).

Dig that weird splotchy coloring.

I had let them go a while without being fed, which gave them a lovely, luminescent red color. Then, a couple days after a heavy feeding, I noticed that there was this mix of pale pink and deep red leaves as the new growth grew in. Super cool!

I also shared this photo of Drosera enodes, which I took as part of my project to improve the pygmy sundew pages on Wikipedia.

One of the loveliest pygmies, imo.

D. enodes forms this little dome composed almost entirely of dew, and it's really, really cute. I love my little pygmies.

Pest follow-up

I've been dealing with pests in the collection a bit lately, so I decided to do some follow-up with a couple of my plants.

First up, the Drosera collinsiae that had aphids on its flower stalk appears to be aphid-free.

This is actually the best this plant has looked in some time.

I think they had all gathered on the flower stalk to take advantage of all the sugar and nutrients concentrated there, which made it easy to get rid of them. I'm keeping this plant in quarantine a bit longer, but I think it's out of the woods.

The same cannot be said for my much more heavily-afflicted Drosera anglica CA x HI.

A shadow of its former glory.

I don't think it really liked the treatment with isopropyl alcohol, and was already quite weakened by aphids. There is a bit of green at the crown, and hopefully it can bounce back, but it's hard to say. Also I'm not positive all the aphids are gone, since they weren't all gathered on an obvious spot. That said I haven't seen any on the sundew weeds in the pot, so I'm holding out hope that there are none left. I'm going to keep this plant in quarantine for a while until it either definitely dies or bounces back and gets stronger. Then I'm going to repot it and throw out the media in case there are eggs.

My experience with this plant is proof of the wisdom of taking cuttings whenever you get a new species or cultivar. If I didn't have those plantlets I would be seriously bummed to lose this hybrid, which is one of the loveliest in cultivation, and somewhat difficult to find.

The most severely caterpillar-munched Drosera burmannii plant has kicked the bucket, but I think the other one is going to make it out alive.

To be fair this plant had already probably outlived its natural lifespan.

There are a couple dewy leaves on the plant on the left in the foreground (which is the one where I found the caterpillar living). I've fed it to jump-start the regrowth process. The one on the right has basically melted. Godspeed little plant.

To honor my fallen plant I want to share this photo from back in May. It's actually of the centermost plant, but I want to share it anyway because I recently realized it had never been posted to the blog, and it's one of the most horrifying photos I have of my carnivores. Consider it a warning to future pests.

D. burmannii is a fearsome hunter.

That's grim.

Aphid busting

Last week I posted about a couple plants that are having some problems and I learned that my Drosera anglica CA x HI had aphids. I had a lot of things going on that week and just didn't have time to address it. Yesterday though, I noticed some of the little buggies on my Drosera collinsiae Faryland and I knew I couldn't wait any longer.

A heavily afflicted plant.

The aphids just recently appeared on this one.

"Computer, zoom and enhance."

Barry Rice says aphids are cute.

Let's get real up-close with the little freeloaders.

Whatever you say Barry.

Little sapsuckers.

Luckily aphid treatment doesn't (usually) require gnarly pesticides. The first line of defense is just isopropyl alcohol, applied with a cotton swab.

A great reckoning is upon us.

Judged and found wanting.

Welcome to your doom.

After some consideration, I decided to trim the flower stalk from the D. collinisae, since that's the only place I saw the aphids, and also to extract the gnarled mutant stalk from the D. anglica, since I suspected there were probably aphids hiding in the cracks.

Desperate times, desperate measures, etc.

I'll be checking in on these plants over the next couple weeks, since apparently aphids are prolific egg-layers and you need to treat repeatedly to make sure they actually get wiped out. Luckily, I do have backup D. anglica plants in case the worst happens.

This is from the cuttings that I thought had died!

This is the Summer Batch.

No backups of the D. collinsiae, but luckily I caught that one pretty early.

For now they're in quarantine. More updates as events warrant.

Fingers crossed.

Some recent additions

I recently visited California Carnivores and took a lot of pictures. I also used $50 in gift cards that my Drosera burmannii won for me at the 2014 BACPS Show. After an amusing misstep trying to buy some display plants, I came away very happy with 5 new acquisitions. I then took them on an hour ride home in a baking hot car with broken AC. They looked a bit wilted right when they got home, but in the intervening couple weeks they've perked up nicely.

The funniest plant I got is Utricularia longifolia.

An organic-looking mound of U. longifolia and Sphagnum.

Damon was nice enough to hunt this plant up from somewhere in the back to sell to me, along with the living Sphagnum it's growing in.  U. longifolia is considered one of the weediest of the large, showy utric species. It also has truly fantastic flowers. My little plug is probably a ways away from blooming, but I've noticed some new growth peeking out from among the Sphagnum. Exciting!

I was also on the hunt for some pings. My girlfriend really likes them, and they add some nice diversity to my growspaces. They're also sort of hard to find for sale compared to sundews. But I found a cute little Pinguicula moranensis.

This plant looks so friendly. A friendly Ping.

Look at those cute little pink leaves! Ping are so adorable. I wonder what it is that makes them so cute? I should get some more and do some research :-P

Of course, I'm always looking for new sundews. I was able to get 3, including another addition to my Drosera capensis collection.

The red form of D. capensis is quite different from other forms, not just in color.

It's the red form! This form has long petioles and fairly narrow laminae, and of course that fantastic red color. Right now it's sort of off to the side in one of my annex trays. One of the many chores I need to complete is a re-organization and consolidation of my trays to be more efficient and to show off plants better.

The plant that least enjoyed the car ride, and which has taken the long time to get back in shape, is Drosera collinsae.

Hopefully this D. collinsae perks up even more in the next few weeks.

It's finally gotten a bit of dew production going and has recovered from looking totally wilted. Hopefully if I feed it and it puts on some new growth it will start looking even better.

The last sundew I got has been my favorite for the last few weeks. It's showy, dewy, and growing like crazy.

I've really been admiring this plant lately.

Drosera venusta! And look, it came with lots of free Utricularia in the pot, hahahah. I feel like pictures I've seen of D. venusta online haven't done it justice. I'd thought it was just a rosetted species like Drosera aliciae or something, but these upright leaves are super nice. Nice colors as well.

I'll have to take another trip soon, since they're supposed to have Drosera slackii in stock. Gotta get more sundews!