Plants I've looked at in the last six weeks: an incomplete catalogue

Hahahah okay let's just admit that I'm probably not going to make 17 posts in a month again (like I did back in April '14) any time soon. Okay well, that established let's see what photos have been languishing on my phone not being posted anywhere.

Drosera binata 'Marston Dragon' looked pretty nuts back on July 31st.

I wonder what the total volume of that dew is. Probably an ounce or two.

I still have no idea what I'm supposed to do with this plant. At least it looks rad as heck.

Fair warning, since I'm gonna be using pictures I've taken at work a fair amount, there are gonna be more neps than there have been on the blog in the past. Considering this Nepenthes eymae × jacquelineae though, can you blame me?

I really like the glaucous character of the pitcher body.

This is a freshly-opened pitcher on what is probably my 4th favorite nep in the greenhouse (please don't ask me what the top 3 are, I have no idea). Wowzer!

Don't worry though, there are also utrics at the greenhouse, such at this Utricularia blanchetii.

So small and fancy.

This is probably the most floriferous of the new little terrestrials I've been messing with lately. It's also completely adorable!

And at home, I still have sundews, even if I'm barely able to rouse myself to water them properly. Here's my Drosera kaieteurensis starting a new flower stalk.

Note that I didn't refer to it as Drosera felix. That because when I showed photos of it to Fernando Rivadavia he was unequivocal that the fuzzy flower stalk indicated D. kaieteurensis. He had no strong opinions about the purported synonymy of the two taxa, but insisted that if the flower stalk was fuzzy it couldn't be D. felix. So there.

Another South American sundew with a difficult-to-spell toponym for its specific epithet is Drosera graomogolensis. It's also a total beast in spite of all my neglect.

This is an extravagant plant.

Root cuttings are an awesome way to get big plants fast, especially if it's one of the species with big fat roots. Great stuff!

Another utric that I'm super stoked about is Utricularia biloba, which opened its first flowers for me a week or so ago.

These also have a neat chubby spur that's bright green.

As others have said of this species, photos don't do justice to the color, which is a deep violet with a hazy blue depth to it. Weirdly, the blue comes out more for me if I blink rapidly while looking at the flowers. Super interesting plant! Thanks Howard!

Finally, I've been selling select plants on Facebook – one-off neps, as well as new items like utrics and sundews that aren't in huge production yet. This Nepenthes fusca sold almost immediately this morning. I can't imagine why.

I wish we had way more of this species than we currently do. It's wonderful!

Anyway, those are some plants. They're pretty cool.

Big news at Sundews Etc. HQ

Hi everybody, this post is mostly about me, rather than the plants, which is not what I usually like to post about. Don't worry though, I've got some pictures of some of my plants to spruce things up!

First of all, I'm about to head to the ICPS Conference in London! I'm very excited to go meet other weird obsessives from around the globe.

The Drosera graomogolensis look rad as heck right now.

I'll be in London next weekend for the conference, and then my girlfriend and I are going to spend a week in Germany futzing about for the hell of it. I'm quite excited, and will make sure to take pictures/video of the event. My great dream is a selfie with Sir David Attenborough, but we'll have to see.

The second bit of news is a bit bigger, and is part of the reason that I've been posting somewhat less frequently in the last several months. I'm now a carnivorous plant professional working at Predatory Plants!

Drosera burmannii Gunung Keledang look very alien and cool.

Specifically, I'm the Director of Retail Operations, which means I do online order fulfillment, work the plant show circuit, and do propagation and greenhouse work whenever I can find a spare second. Basically I now think about plants all day long, almost to the exclusion of other concerns. It's very exciting – and very, very unexpected – to have begun something of a career in carnivorous plants, especially considering I bought my first Drosera capensis less than 3 years ago.

Utricularia praelonga still blooming up a storm.

In point of fact, I've been working at Predatory Plants since November. At first it was part time (after I left my last job), and then it became full time, but it wasn't clear that it would be a permanent position. Luckily, things have been going quite well in expanding the business, and well here we are. My family is deeply confused about what my life has become.

This is Drosera adelae Giant form, and it's actually genuinely giant. Wow!

What does this mean for the blog and Instagram? Well, I might not post quite as often, if only because after a long day in a hot greenhouse I can barely manage to keep my personal plants watered, much less documented and blogged about. However, now that everything's all official I'll be able to post about work stuff as well, some of which is quite cool. I'm still trading and selling my own seeds and gemmae, but I may occasionally post links to fun stuff that we're selling on our website.

The unspeakably adorable Pinguicula gypsicola × moctezumae at work.

Thanks to all of you who read the blog, and who have commented and emailed about how much you enjoy it. I had been in a bit of a post-college slump/depression for a bit when I started collecting sundews, and then started blogging about it. It really got me out of my funk, and now it's gotten me a very strange and fun job. Life is very weird and cool! So are carnivorous plants, I guess.

Blogging is hard

I was staring at my plants earlier, trying to think up a blog post, and I realized that I was having a hard time thinking of what to post about. I think that's because I've been sort of out of the posting loop, and that the good thing to do was to just post about some plants. So here they are.

At the recent BACPS meeting I was given a chunk of a very cool plant, Utricularia babui.

I love new utrics.

This utric produces blue-to-purple flowers that are shaped similarly to Utricularia gramnifolia. It's pretty uncommon, so I'm excited to have some.

My Drosera graomogolensis have grown in a bit after a recent feeding.

I should have started growing this plant a long time ago.

Great color on these also. Such a pretty plant!

This big Drosera capensis is looking pretty good right now – especially considering that I dropped my light fixture on top of it a couple week ago.

This is a wonderful clone.

You can't even tell! D. capensis is such a trooper.

I've seen some size increase in my Pinguicula cyclosecta and Pinguicula esseriana.

Keep going little pings.

I took a couple leaf pullings, cause you should always be propagating. There's a lot of growing in to do still though.

The Drosera barbigera have totally recovered from gemmae season and are looking awesome.

Little fireworks!

Doesn't look like I'm having any gemmae-related attrition this year either, which is great.

Finally, my long-arm Drosera capillaris are looking amazing right now.

Look how dewy!

These are the ones from Tate's Hell Swamp, FL. Best location data.

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.