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.

Flowers and pygmies

A new flower has popped up in the collection. This is Utricularia heterosepala, a new utric I picked up from California Carnivores recently.

Such a lovely flower.

It's a pretty good-sized flower, around the size of Utricularia calycifida. It's pale pink and white, and quite handsome. I love getting new utrics.

In other flower news, there are 4 flower stalks coming up on my Utricularia longifolia.

U. longifolia is the best.

It's a bit hard to see, but this is going to be quite a bloom show. The tallest stalk is almost ready to pop, while the others have a bit more growing in to do. I love this plant! Once the flowers are done I think I'm gonna break it up a bit – keep a small pot inside, and then stick something very large outside, like in a 2 gallon pot or something silly like that.

I've got a pot of Drosera helodes × pulchella that is absolutely losing its mind with flowers right now.

I don't know what to do when they get like this.

Pygmy crosses are nuts. This is too much.

A funny thing is going on with my one Drosera grievei that produced gemmae.

Very cute plant!

It looks a bit crested. You occasionally see fasciation in carnivorous plants, and I feel like I've heard about it in pygmies, but this is the first I've seen (if that is what's going on). Glad to have gemmae at least!

I just missed the second Drosera felix flower.

It's much too precious.

It's still really pretty, how delicately the petals are folded. I should feed this guy.

Finally, my Drosera spiralis has started to bloom again.

Always stoked to see this guy flowering.

I just fed one of its older leaves, which may have prompted it to start flowering. I'm a bit torn – I love D. spiralis flowers, but I don't want it to sap energy from the plant before the show. Maybe I'll compromise and take flower stalk cuttings in a couple weeks.

U. subulata and D. felix flowering

I watched the Superbowl at a friend's house today and ate a truly massive amount of ceviche. I hope your day was similarly fruitful. It's been a week and a half since my last post! I've been all over the place lately. One of the nicest things going on in the collection right now is this Utricularia subulata flower stalk.

Such a yellow flower!

U. subulata is a very frustrating plant. It's got a wonderful flower with a cool zig-zag flower stalk and these weird dew drops at the base of the peduncles. Very cool! Except it mostly produces cleistogamous flowers for me. Cleistogamous flowers form buds, but never bother to actually produce a flower – they just self-fertilize within the bud, then spill seed everywhere. I probably get several hundred cleistogamous flowers for each real flower stalk. Why can't you be better U. subulata? I want to love you!

Another plant that has been looking pretty legit is this Pinguicula moctezumae I received in a trade a bit ago.

I should separate these two out.

I've never really cared for P. moctezumae, but I think that's because it tends to clump (which is not my favorite characteristic in a plant). These are actually really attractive under lights. Also, the flowers of this species are really nice. Someday!

My Pinguicula gigantea is blooming again for the first time in a while. But I'm posting today because it's been doing pretty well on the gnats lately.

It's not good to be a flying insect in my garage.

You can find photos of P. gigantea that are absolutely covered in gnats, which I think is super gross and ugly. Those are mostly grown in pretty humid greenhouses – I just don't have that many bugs in my growing areas. Still, good to know that mine can actually do work once in a while.

My Drosera brevifolia has responded well to feeding and is pretty much full-sized now.

So tiny! Those wedge-shaped leaves are so distinctive.

Gotta feed these again soon. Gonna want to re-seed this colony to get a few more going. Very cute plants! Nice red color too.

I recently took a trip to California Carnivores, where I picked up this sweet Drosera hilaris.

It's just starting to color up under the lights.

This is one of the neater South African species. I've heard conflicting reports of it being a summer dormant plant. It may just be that it is optionally dormant in hot weather. Apparently this one really likes cool temps. We'll see how it does!

Finally, the delight of winter so far has been my blooming Drosera felix. The other day I was lucky enough to catch a flower open.

So. Cute. Oh my god.

This plant is hands-down the cutest thing in my collection right now. Look how fuzzy the flower stalk is! I got another good picture of this flower from a different angle and shared it on my Instagram. I always try to have different pictures up there!

Winter's not so bad.

South American Drosera roundup, January 2016

I've become quite keen on South American sundews lately. They're a sort of intermediate difficulty – rarer than the South African subtropicals (Drosera capensis etc.) and harder to propagate. However, they haven't proven all that much more difficult to grow, at least not in my conditions. In fact, they seem to like my conditions quite a bit. Drosera felix is even blooming for me!

Incredible red color and a fuzzy flower stalk. What's not to like?

Look at at that flower stalk. It's so fuzzy! Apparently lots of people consider this plant synonymous with Drosera kaieteurensis, but I'm going to keep referring to it as D. felix because that's how I received it (in case taxonomy gets reshuffled again), and because it's an adorable name.

My Drosera graomogolensis root cuttings are going well!

Two so far. They're big too!

I think I can get 2 or 3 more plantlets out of this root, so I'm going to leave the humidity tent on for a while more. Very pleased with the progress so far. Really looking forward to being able to harden this guy off.

My largest Drosera tomentosa seedling is still pretty small.

So little still. Good luck buddy!

I've fed these guys once or twice, but I think I should do it again. This is the perfect size to start really feeding. Gotta be careful about mold though – lately that's been much more common when I'm feeding my sundews. Not sure why.

Drosera sessilifolia is another South American species, though I almost forgot about it for this post. I group it with Drosera burmannii in my mind, since they're both in Drosera subgenus Thelocalyx.

There are a lot of flower stalks going on in this pot. I need to address that somehow.

Those two in front got a heavy feeding recently, which is why they're not showing as much color. They also got a lot of mold on the food, I think because I had ground it a few days prior and left it out to accumulate mold spores. Lesson learned!

Finally, my favorite of the South American plants, Drosera spiralis.

I really, really like this plant a lot.

It's perennially difficult to get a good photo of this plant, since it grows right up into the lights. That's actually a problem I need to solve soon, since I want to start prepping it for the BACPS show in June. I guess I can always raise the lights a bit. Killer plant though, it's supporting almost 6 leaves right now. That's a lot for this species!

If you've had success with Drosera for a year or so I strongly encourage you to try out some South American forms. They're quite nice, and very satisfying. And if you grow any SA sundews, hit me up! I'd love to trade and talk shop.

Some recent trading

I've been doing a bit of trading lately, after having been out of the game for a while. Got some fun new plants in!

First off, it's my first Cephalotus follicularis!

So little!

I've been overdue for a Ceph. This is a small one, but it holds great promise! This (and the next two plants) are from a trade with David Flocken, who I recently profiled in a Grower Interview.

This is Drosera spatulata 'Tamlin', a well-known cultivar of the infamously messy D. spatulata complex.

A D. spatulata with an actual identity. Nice!

D. 'Tamlin' is named after Tamlin Dawnstar, a very well-respected member of the community who has been in prison for (if I recall) growing small amounts of marijuana. Tamlin unfortunately got arrested before the recent relaxing of the law around marijuana, but he was known as a very giving member of the community in days past (and hopefully will be again soon). I've seen mature specimens of this cultivar that look quite a bit like Drosera ultramafica × spatulata, so I'm interested to see how it grows in.

Finally, I couldn't do a trade with David without getting my hands on a Drosera capensis "Big Pink".

Drosera capensis "Big Pink".

I'm very excited to see how this plant matures. Given how David talked it up I've got high hopes indeed. Getting a good new form of D. capensis is always cause for rejoicing.

A little bit ago I also did a trade around some South American Drosera. Unfortunately, it looks like the Drosera latifolia leaves I was trying to start from cuttings didn't take off.

Poor dead leaf cuttings.

I'm pretty sure that I'm to blame with this. I've been absolutely terrible at keeping water levels high lately, and I think it just got too dry for these cuttings. I've got a scheme for improving success with leaf cuttings though, I'll have to trial it soon.

My Drosera graomogolensis root cutting, on the other hand, has 2 strikes and I'd be amazed if I don't get more soon.

First strike on D. graomogolensis.

Second strike on D. graomogolensis.

Root cuttings are the obviously best way to go for propagating a lot of sundew species, but I'm glad these guys have been so good about it. I can't wait to have some D. graomogolensis – it's a beautiful sundew.

Finally, I've very nearly hardened off my Drosera felix a.k.a. Drosera kaieteurensis.

I think it looks very happy!

Apparently the specific epithet "felix" is currently considered synonymous with "kaieteurensis", which I think is a bummer, because the word "felix" means "happy", which is a great specific epithet. In any case, it seems to be doing well. I almost wish it was a bit less blushed, since it actually seems a little over-lit currently. I'm not too worried though, it's got some decent dew there.

Trading is fun, but it's a lot of work! I've got some space in my collection recently (I've cleared out a few old pots), so I've still got room too expand. There are always more Drosera out there!

A bit of trading

I haven't done much trading lately. I've been a bit too busy to deal with receiving bare-root plants, and I don't have any space in my collection anyway. But I've recently started hunting for South America Drosera (if you've got extra and would like to work something out, email me at sundews.etc@gmail.com), so I wound up doing a couple trades.

Drosera felix is getting acclimated to its new home with a bit of boosted humidity.

Time to get in shape little guy.

Actually, I just looked it up on Wikipedia and I guess D. felix is now considered synonymous with Drosera kaieteurensis? That's too bad, felix is a cuter specific epithet (it means "happy"). Cute little plant in any case!

I also got some leaf cuttings of Drosera latifolia.

Leaf cuttings always make me a bit anxious.

And a nice big root of Drosera graomogolensis.

Root cuttings are much less fraught.

I'm looking forward to these guys striking and growing out, but it'll be a few months at the earliest.

One of the people I was trading with wanted some Drosera hamiltonii, so I decided to take some root cuttings. The roots had gone insane and grown into the pot, and I ended up with several extra. So I potted them up too!

I'm running out of room still.

Hopefully these grow in pretty quickly, since I oriented the root vertically.

In other propagation news, I finally managed to get a strike on Pinguicula "Yucca Doo 1717".

New baby plants!

I've done several pulls of this plant, but this is the first one that didn't wither away immediately. It's just in time too, since it looks like one of my adult plants above it is melting away itself.