New camera!

Yesterday I got a new phone, which is to say I got a new camera. I actually got this phone specifically for the camera, because my old phone really struggled to focus on close-up objects. This one does it beautifully! To celebrate, I've created a post of flowers – just the sort of thing I would really struggle to photograph with my old device. Here's to more closeups in the future!

Drosera callistos with the lovely orange and black.

I love the adorable dots on Drosera helodes.

The focus ended up being on the upcoming bud on this Drosera sessilifolia.

So much for cutting the flower stalk off my Drosera spiralis.

I had to bend this Drosera natalensis stalk away from the lights to get a picture. Lovely!

Utricularia heterosepala is a very nice, creamy pink color.

Utricularia lateriflora is a wonderful species. So glad I got it!

What more can I say about Utricularia longifolia?

Byblis liniflora always looks so unearthly.

I think Pinguicula laueana × emarginata has one of the prettiest flowers in the genus.

Pinguicula gigantea is so cheeky.

Pinguicula 'Aphrodite' and Pinguicula emarginata are just hanging out together.

Whew! That's a lot of flowers!

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.

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.

Plant Profile: Drosera spiralis, updated

This is part of a series of posts describing my experiences with different species, their culture requirements, and photos of their growth in my collection. The full series can be read here, or by species on the Series page.

About a year and a half ago I did a Plant Profile of one of my favorite sundew species, Drosera spiralis. A lot has happened in the mean time, so I decided to do an update.

Here's what my plant (and my collection) looked like back in April 2014.

The halcyon days of yore.

And here's the same plant today!

I didn't realize they got this big, hahahah.

It was really hard to photograph because of how big its gotten. The leaves are more than 9 inches (23 cm) tall, which means they end up growing into my lights sometimes. It's a big robust plant, and has proven very easy and vigorous in my conditions.

This was like the 3rd or 4th sundew I acquired, at the Winter 2014 BACPS meeting. That's where we all learned the difference between D. spiralis and D. gramnifolia. One of the tests was how the leaves unfurl. Of course, taxonomy being what it is, the plants don't always cooperate.

A uniform spiral, technically characteristic of D. gramnifolia.

More what a D. spiralis leaf is "supposed" to look like.

One of the things that I learned was that D. spiralis is a difficult, temperamental plant that might just up and die on me at any minute. That hasn't proven to be true. I suspect that two things make this plant happy in my conditions: extremely bright light, and consistently cool nighttime temperatures. Longer-leaved sundews always do the worst in low light, and the mountaintops where this is found in habitat are pretty much always chilly at night.

I had enough success with this formula that I've even flowered the plant twice!

Check out those stipules too, those are sweet.

Best Drosera flower I've seen in my collection so far.

The second time it flowered the plant even managed to set a bit of seed. I sold the excess, but I've saved some to try cultivating. Another thing I want to try is root cuttings. The plant has sent out long roots into the tray that are just ripe for propagation.

Time to take some cuttings!

Basically, this plant wants highland conditions, but with very bright, intense light. Since I've moved my collection into the garage (where it's even cooler) it's just done fantastically. If your Drosera capensis look really fantastic, there's a chance you could grow D. spiralis as well. It's worth a shot anyway.

And don't forget to feed them! The mature plants don't move their leaves, but they'll curl all the tentacles in to feast. And little babies even roll up on the food, like this sproutling that appeared a few months ago next to the mother plant.

You go little plant. Eat that fish food.

Much too cute.

The Breakdown

• media: long-fiber Sphagnum, perhaps with a bit of pumice to keep it airy
• light: unspeakable amounts of light
• water: tray method, doesn't mind occasional dry days
• temperature: cool nights make all the difference
• feeding: feeding fresh leaves is good.
• propagation: no experience so far (soon, though!)

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!

Some stuff blooming inside

I noticed that my Drosera spiralis is starting another flower stalk.

Check out that wonky leaf too. I don't know why it grew like that.

This is a great plant! I really need to do some root cuttings.

Let's see what else is blooming around the growspaces.

Pinguicula laueana × emarginata flower. Very elegant.

Pinguicula emarginata. It's fun to compare with the hybrid flower above.

Emerging Drosera binata flower stalk. I think I'll turn this one into cuttings.

Drosera capensis. I received this as a broad leaf form. the leaves aren't that broad, but it's a large, impressive plant.

Of course there are a million Utricularia bisquamata and Utricularia subulata blooms everywhere. It's nice to see everything blooming so nicely.

BACPS Fall 2014 meeting

This last Saturday was the Fall meeting of the BACPS, held at the UC Botanical Garden. It was held as usual in the Conference Center, near the Tropical House.

The UCBG Conference Center.

Unlike usual, the smaller room in the Conference Center was occupied by a pretty cool display about food crops in the Americas.

I think this was a fall harvest sort of display, and a very good one.

Also unusual, but less cool, was that due to various miscommunications the meeting was scheduled on a Cal home game day, which caused problems with traffic and road closures and definitely reduced the total meeting turnout. However, it was still a lot of fun. People were milling around and chatting before the meeting actually got started.

Chatting is half the fun.

The featured presenter of the meeting was Drew Martinez, a fantastic grower who had a number of winning plants at the 2014 BACPS Show (including a Drosera regia that I think was my favorite plant there). He also has an MS in optical engineering, and was there to talk to us about artificial lighting.

Drew holding forth.

The talk was jam-packed with information! In fact, a little too jam-packed – apparently this is supposed to be more like a 2 hour presentation, and he managed to squeeze it into about 45 minutes. He discussed which wavelengths of light are photosynthetically useful to plants, how much of that light is produced by various sources of artificial lighting, and efficiency per watt and also in terms of cost.

One of many extremely useful slides. I wish I could consult them regularly!

This was all extremely useful information, but as I said, it was definitely an abbreviated presentation. Apparently his data will be published by the Associazione Italiana Piante Carnivore (in English) in their next quarterly journal. Anyone who is interested in artificial lighting for carnivorous plants should check it out. To spoil the surprise a bit, cool white T8 bulbs seem to be overall the most efficient in terms of photosynthetically-useful light per watt. LEDs are currently best used for specific purposes, such as smaller spaces, or to encourage certain characteristics (deeper color, for example). This is a gross simplification, so just make sure to hunt down that article when it's published! I'll share it if I find it first.

The other main part of the meeting was an informal "late bloomers" show. This was a chance for members to show off plants that are looking better now, in early fall, than they were back in June at the annual show. Unfortunately there were only 4 plants entered, probably partly due to some people skipping the meeting because of the football game. There was an anthocyanin-free Sarracenia psittacina from Larry Logoteta, a Sarracenia hybrid from Doris Quick, my own Drosera spiralis, and a Drosophyllum lusitanicum by a fellow named Richard from San Jose.

AF S. psittacina, Larry Logoteta.

Sarracenia hybrid, Doris Quick.

Drosera spiralis, Devon Peterson (that's me!).

Drosophyllum lusitanicum, Richard (I'll add a last name later if I can). This was my favorite.

My D. spiralis was kind enough to bloom for the meeting, and it impressed enough people for me to win a $15 gift certificate to California Carnivores. Fernando Rivadavia commented that the flower had been open for a long time, and it really was. It was fully open at 11 am or so when I started getting ready to go to the meeting, and it only started closing around 3 pm. That's a long time for a sundew flower!

The meeting was pretty fun, even though it was a bit stressful with the football game and all. I mentioned to Stephen and Doris, two of the board members, that I'd be interested in getting a bit more involved with the BACPS, so we'll see what I end up doing. I'd really like to have more regular, casual meetups with local growers. That'd be a fun way to swap plants and information.

I'll leave you with two pictures of plants from the vendors. First are some enormous Sarracenia minor var. okefenokeensis and Sarracenia alata var. rubricorpora that were amazing (though a bit out of my budget) from California Carnivores, followed by an incredibly darling tray of Utricularia sandersonii from Predatory Plants.

These are mature divisions from their outdoor bogs. Really amazing plants!

A whole field of angry bunnies!

Good times.