What's blooming in winter?

It's not officially winter yet, but we've gotten the first real chill in California this last week. Let's see what's blooming in spite of the – relative – cold (it's still California, after all).

Pinguicula emarginata and Pinguicula lusitanica are both putting up blooms.

The venation in this flower is even visible before it opens.

There you go little guy!

P. emarginata is extremely floriferous, and it's got wonderful flowers. I like having it in my collection! The P. lusitanica is a very healthy specimen I got from Josh, and I'm hoping it'll set seed with this bloom, rather than just dying like my last one did.

The alien and adorable Utricularia pubescens has a solitary bloom right now.

Funny little flower.

Unfortunately the sporangia outnumber the flower stalks in this pot. Fortunately, the U. pubescens flowers are cool as heck.

My Byblis liniflora keeps making new blooms, but I've yet to collect any seed from it.

B. liniflora is so delicate-looking.

For whatever reason these guys just aren't making any fruit/seeds. It's still a great plant, but I need to get seed before it dies off. Oh well, I can enjoy it for now at least!

There are a couple other plants blooming right now that I've yet to get seed from: Drosera venusta and Drosera madagascariensis.

This flower stalk is much too long.

Good luck little guy.

That D. venusta stalk is super long and dangly. As you can see, it's insinuated itself among the Drosera spiralis. There might be some seed setting in the spent buds, but I can't tell. The D. madagascariensis might have a better shot this time around, since it's in full scramble, and will be able to support itself on the media once the stalk gets too long. We'll see.

One plant that I'm betting on heavily for seed is this Drosera capensis red form. It's gotten several significant feedings, and it's rewarding me with a fat crop of buds.

A lot more to come here.

Josh has said that this form of D. capensis is the only one that occasionally fails to set seed for him, but I think that this flower stalk at least is chugging away – I'm pretty sure there's some seed swelling in the oldest buds. The tough thing will be to avoid bumping it while it finishes blooming out.

Drosera aliciae and Drosera anglica CA × HI are both blooming for the first time in a while, and I'm excited to get some seed from them.

Haven't seen this one in a while!

I need to do something about this corner.

The D. aliciae that live in the community pot always seem to struggle with humic acid buildup, which makes their growth stall, but I'm not sure what to do about it. Eventually it clears up and growth starts again. I should feed this guy to get a nice crop of seed. The D. anglica is sitting over in the former quarantine tray, and is bending towards the light (the bulbs should be replaced soon).

Finally, there's a flower open on some Drosera omissa.

If you're not growing pygmies yet you should start this season.

As you can see, this species is a very enthusiastic bloomer. It's funny, I've only gotten a few species of pygmies to flower. D. omissa flowers the most readily, and I've also gotten blooms on D. leucostigma, D. allantostigma, and D. helodes. However, I've never flowered D. scorpioides, or D. pulchella, or any of the other species that are otherwise doing so well. It's curious.

The gemmae are ripening though :-D

Flowers!

There's a lot in bloom right now. It's spring!

Drosera helodes.

Sarracenia flava.

Drosera omissa with lots of flowers.

Utricularia calycifida.

Drosera sessilifolia (probably).

Utricularia subulata.

Drosera natalensis.

And it's not just carnivores that are in bloom. Peep this Cleistocactus tupizensis.

C. tupizensis.

Nice!

Pgymy sundew update

Back in December I started a whole bunch of pygmy sundews from gemmae. Most of them have done pretty well! Let's check in.

Drosera barbigera type form on left, Drosera pulchella orange flower on right.

Drosera sargentii on left, Drosera patens on right.

Drosera ×Dork's Pink on the left, Drosera occidentalis (or lack thereof) on the right.

Drosera roseana on the left, Drosera pygmaea on the right.

Drosera paleacea giant form on the left and Drosera leucoblasta (Brookton) on the right.

Drosera ×Carbarup on the left and Drosera grievei on the right.

Drosera omissa pink flower up top and Drosera silvicola down below.

A few observations about the pygmies:

• D. occidentalis pretty much failed across the board. I think that the gemmae, being so small, dessicated on the sand before they could reach the media. It's too bad, because D. occidentalis is exactly the pygmy to most benefit by keeping the moss down. Maybe I'll do one final order.
• D. omissa is a total beast. Easily the most successful and vigorous of the batch.
•  I like the color on D. patens and D. palacea a lot.
• The gemmae that were more expensive (D. silvicola and D. sargentii, for example) haven't been as vigorous. I guess that's part of rarity.

Here's how the Pygmy Garden is shaping up.

The Pygmy Garden is looking pretty good!

There are a couple bare patches. Maybe I'll fill them in with some Drosera scorpioides and Drosera callistos.

As a bit of an aside, look at this visitor I had to the collection while I was photographing my collection.

Hi there cutie!

A cute little jumping spider on my Drosera burmannii! I plucked the little dude off because I really like them and my D. burmannii have enough to eat already.

Several exciting new blooms

Big surprise in the collection recently – a flower stalk is coming up on my Utricularia longifolia!

There's another, smaller stalk off to the right. Yay!

Utricularia flowers are always fun, and U. longifolia has some of the best. I can't wait for these blooms to pop. I'll prolly take them to the April BACPS meeting if they've opened by then. Probably pot them up into something nicer too.

I've also got the first Sarracenia blooms coming up this season – Sarracenia flava (which also has a pitcher coming up) and Sarracenia alata "red black" (one of my recent acquisitions).

These buds look like little alien heads. It's funny.

These are my first Sarr blooms. Cool!

I just trimmed all the old dead pitchers and stuff off of my Sarrs, so we're ready for spring. I am so excited – things are going to look amazing in a couple of months.

Finally, the first of the pygmies from my big order back in December has bloomed. It's Drosera omissa!

They're just trying so hard!

It only took 9 weeks from gemmae to flower. That's ridiculous. The other pygmies are trucking along (I should do another pygmy roundup soon), but nothing is even close to these guys. I haven't even fed them at all! Pygmies are awesome. Everyone should grow pygmies.

A note for any readers of the blog living in the greater Bay Area – the BACPS is having it's first social seed swap this coming Sunday, the 22nd, at the Westbrae Biergarten in Berkeley from 3 to 7 pm. If you're free you should try and come down! The Carnivore Girl will be there, as will California Carnivores' own Peter d'Amato. Bring seeds, gemmae, leaf pulls, and cuttings to swap with other growers, have a couple beers, and geek out with fellow plant nerds for a couple hours. The location is dog and kid friendly, and within easy walking distance of the North Berkeley BART along the Ohlone Trail. Hope to see you there!

Winter growing plants are pretty cool

There are lots of ways to organize plants. It's something that real serious botanists spend whole careers doing – determining which plants are related genetically, or by ecosystem, or what have you. Hobbyist plant collectors have their own categorization schemes, which may or may not be strictly botanically valid. The hobbyists tend to focus primarily on cultivation requirements, since providing good conditions for plants (especially weird plants like carnivores) can be expensive or difficult, so it's nice to know what groups of plants can grow in the systems you've set up.

Sundew growers are particularly blessed/cursed in that Drosera is such a heterogeneous genus, with plants growing all over the world in all sorts of habitats (in contrast with, for example, Sarracenia, which have relatively similar needs in cultivation).

I have my own, thoroughly unscientific, categories which guide me in developing my collection.

Temperate (Drosera filiformis, Drosera rotundifolia)
South American (Drosera spiralis, Drosera camporupestris)
Petiolaris (Drosera ordensis, Drosera falconeri)
Tuberous (Drosera ramellosa, Drosera zonaria)
Pygmy (Drosera scorpioides, Drosera allantostigma)
Winter-growing South African (Drosera cistiflora, Drosera hilaris)
"Annuals" (Drosera burmannii, Drosera hartmeyerorum)
Assorted warm temperate, subtropical, and tropical plants (Drosera capensis, Drosera binata, the Three Sisters of Queensland)

I recently acquired a plant from a group new to me, the South African winter growers. This is Drosera cistiflora.

It started dewing up so quickly!

I acquired this plant through the Facebook group Carnivorous Plant Auctions and Sales. It's a great resource if you're looking to expand your collection or sell off a few of your extra plants. I've had some D. cistiflora seeds for several months but I hadn't given germination a shot because...well, I'm not sure why. In any case, this plant has acclimated pretty quickly, and it's even coloring up under my lights a bit.

Drosera ramellosa is another winter grower (though it's a tuberous species from Australia). It's not doing quite as well.

Don't go dormant yet! Come on!

The tips seem to be dying back, which is what it will do in summer as it goes dormant. But this is way, way too early to be dying back. It was sorta warm lately, but not that warm. I hope I don't lose this plant. We'll see what happens.

My Drosera rupicola (which I acquired at the same time) is doing much better.

I've fed this one a couple times.

The color is pretty good, and it's definitely still growing. Hope it stays that way.

Pygmy sundews are sort of winter growers. They're summer dormant at least. I've got a stray Drosera omissa growing in this Drosera grievei pot.

D. omissa is really a beast. They've gotten really big already.

I think some of the pygmies in the rear of this tray didn't get sprayed as well, so they have a much lower success rate. I guess I'll just have to wait to harvest some gemmae next year and then re-sow some of these pots. The lesson in this is to make sure that your pygmy pots are easily accessible when sowing on sand, since they definitely need to be kept moist.

The second round of pygmies is in a smaller tray, so hopefully they see more success as I spray them more regularly. This is Drosera oreopodion.

They're just specks.

Well, it's almost D. oreopodion. It'll be D. oreopodion soon. There aren't many pictures of this plant online, so I'm excited to see how it develops!

Progress shots from the Pygmy Garden

Things are really starting to get going over in the Pygmy Garden.

The Pygmy Garden is starting to actually look like a garden now.

You can start seeing distinct patches developing. I'm really looking forward to seeing this a few months down the road once everything has filled in. Let's get in close!

Drosera omissa (center) surrounded by other species.

Drosera silvicola getting that stem going.

Deep red Drosera x Carbarup.

The prettiest one in the bunch so far, Drosera x Dork's Pink.

I'm definitely glad I drew up this map when I was first creating the garden. It's a bit rough, but it was enough for me to figure out which was which. There are so many pygmies in this garden! I can't even imagine how cute it's going to be when some of them start blooming.

Speaking of blooms, I've got a little something developing on my Pinguicula laueana x emarginata.

My first-ever bloom on a ping other than Pinguicula gigantea.

I was just thinking earlier about how I want to pot this up into something bigger. Now I guess I'll wait at least until it's done flowering. I'm excited!

Pygmy progress and random updates

My pygmy garden is really starting to come along.

The Pygmy Garden is still, uh, progressing.

Impressive right? Hah. I'm really just putting this picture on the blog as a growth rate reference for later. It's easier to see the development on the individual pots though.

Drosera silvicola plantlets developing from gemmae.

Drosera omissa plantlets from gemmae.

Drosera barbigera, still more gemmae than plantlet.

They're still blending in pretty well with the sand, but I see nice growth over all. It'll get easier once they're a little bigger. Then I can feed them and they'll put on good size. If I can manage to feed them regularly, at least.

The strikes on my Dionaea muscipula 'B-52' are developing nicely.

It's cool how the strikes are different colors.

It'd be great if I got 2 plantlets out of this.

Nearby I've got that Drosera anglica CA x HI that had been ignored when I'd thought the leaf cutting had failed. It was far from the lights, but now I've moved it in to color up some more.

Starting to show some red.

There are two plants right up next to each other in this pot too. Nice!

And finally, my Drosera prolifera just keeps looking great. It's about time this plant started doing well.

The dew is finally coming in for these guys.