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.

Pinguicula leaf pull update

Back at the end of April I yanked a couple leaves from various Mexican Pinguicula. I've had some decent success since then.

Pinguicula laueana is really a hero when it comes to propagation – this picture is from May 4th, just 5 days after I took the pullings.

P. laueana leaf pull after 5 days.

And here we are now:

Same leaf pull after 2 weeks.

This guy has been very reliable for me when it comes to leaf pulls. This bodes well for the future.

Next up is Pinguicula 'Pirouette'. If you look very closely at the leaf base (click the picture for higher resolution) you'll notice some little bulges that are definitely strikes.

P. 'Pirouette' leaf pull after 2 weeks.

I donated some plantlets from an earlier leaf pull to the NASC auction. Now I've got to get some started for the next BACPS meeting.

I haven't seen any action on the Pinguicula gigantea or the Pinguicula agnata that I started at the same time, but the Pinguicula rotundiflora that I posted about last night is getting right to it.

So many little plantlets.

I'm well on my way to ultimate cuteness.

In other ping news, the Pinguicula gigantea × moctezumae that Anne gave me a couple weeks ago have already put on some nice new growth.

Almost time for a bigger pot.

And the Pinguicula cyclosecta that received back at the beginning of February are showing excellent color, and the largest one is starting to fill out its rosette very nicely.

That lavender color is so lovely and unique.

Thank you for visiting Pinguicula Etc.

Pinguicula roundup, March 2015

It's been a while since I did a Pinguicula roundup, and I've acquire quite a few new species/hybrids/cultivars since then. Let's have a look!

First up is this tray that houses several little starts I've acquired recently.

Pinguicula start tray. Little babies!

In here we have (clockwise from top right): Pinguicula 'Florian', Pinguicula jaumavensis, Pinguicula rotundiflora × hemiepiphytica, Pinguicula 'Sethos', Pinguicula esseriana, and Pinguicula cyclosecta.

P. florian, March 2015.

P. jaumavensis, March 2015.

P. rotundiflora × hemiepiphytica, March 2015.

P. 'Sethos', March 2015.

P. esseriana starts, March 2015.

P. cyclosecta, March 2015.

Some of these have really nice colors, especially the P. 'Florian' and P. cyclosecta. Also my friend Apache Rose said that the P. rotundiflora × hemiepiphytica is her favorite ping, and she has a very nice collection (four of these starts are from her). One more note – in a couple of months I'm going to have a lot of little P. esseriana floating around hahah.

Now for some old friends. Pinguicula gigantea is in the midst of another flowering burst.

Flowering P. gigantea, March 2015.

Hopefully that means it will start dividing again soon!

My other two tiny little P. esseriana are putting on a bit of size.

Somewhat older P. esseriana, March 2015.

Still pretty small though.

Pinguicula moranensis recently made some leaves that look sort of succulent, so I took a pulling.

P. moranensis, March 2015.

Here's hoping it strikes! I should take another.

Meanwhile there's another flower forming on Pinguicula laueana × emarginata.

P. laueana × emarginata, March 2015.

It's really filling out that tiny pot.

Still watching the carnivorous leaf unfurl on Pinguicula laueana.

P. laueana, March 2015.

I've also got some pullings working on this guy. Fingers crossed!

It's about time I separated these two Pinguicula "Yucca Doo 1717" plants.

P. "Yucca Doo 1717", March 2015.

They've put on some good size since I traded for them back in August.

Pinguicula 'Pirouette' is looking amazing lately.

P. 'Pirouette', March 2015.

Lots of success from those pullings too.

Finally, Pinguicula agnata, which hasn't gotten much attention on the blog lately, but which just has a delightful leaf shape and color.

P. agnata, March 2015.

I love my pings. I feel like I should consolidate them into a tray together so I can appreciate them better. So pretty!

Some recent acquisitions

I usually wait a little bit to post about new plants I acquire, since you want to make sure they're not going to just immediately croak in your conditions. It's happened to me a couple of times that I get a plant in the mail, it looks awesome for a day, and then it withers into nothing. One thing I've started doing to mitigate this is using humidity tents on any new plant I receive in the mail. That way if the plant was use to substantially higher humidity than my conditions provide it can be hardened off gradually without going into shock.

Drosera cistiflora is a relatively recent addition to my collection – I received it a little over 3 weeks ago, after winning it in an auction on the Carnivorous Plant Auctions and Sales Facebook group, and it has bounced back tremendously from shipping.

So much dew on this D. cistiflora.

Is it thinking about starting a stem?

I'm almost done hardening this guy off. Look at that great dew, and that touch of red in the tentacles. Excellent! For a humidity tent I use a sandwich-sized Ziploc baggie fit over the pot. I harden off the plants by first cutting off one corner, then the other, then opening the top all the way, then cutting down the sides of the baggies, then finally removing it all together. The whole process usually takes 2 weeks or so, and the plants seem to do just fine.

About a week after I received the D. cistiflora I completed a trade with another California grower who was looking for Pinguicula gigantea. I sent him a large offset, along with a couple Utrics, and he sent me a few plants in exchange. These cute little starts of Pinguicula cyclosecta and Pinguicula 'Florian' were part of the exchange.

Baby Pings: the only thing cuter than mature Pings?

This cultivar grows up to have very lovely scalloped edges.

These are little babies. I harden Pings off much more quickly than I do Drosera, since Pings are usually comfortable with lower humidity over all. These guys are almost done.

He also sent along a big clump of Drosera × snyderi, which is a botanically invalid name for Drosera dielsiana × nidiformis (an Ivan Snyder hybrid). I wonder if the fact that most people agree that the Drosera dielsiana in cultivation is mostly Drosera natalensis means that this plant is actually D. natalensis × nidiformis. This is the nitty-gritty of plant collecting.

This is kind of a lot of plants.

There's some decent dew on these guys, though they're taking their time a bit. The dividing and repotting process was a bit tougher on this group of plants, so that makes sense.

The last plant I received in that trade was a green form of Drosera burmannii from the Hann River in Kimberley, WT, Australia. I've been wanting a green form of D. burmannii for a while, so this was very exciting.

What a looker.

This little dude started out all green with pale tentacles, but the tentacles have since reddened up and made this a really breathtaking plant. Just look at it! I can't wait to start feeding it heavily and seeing what it looks like all grown up.

Finally, just yesterday I met up with a grower from the eastern reaches of the Bay Area (hi Rose!) to swap a couple of plants. She got several Drosera plants and some gemmae, and I got several Ping starts and this lovely little Sarracenia psittacina.

My first S. psittacina!

Apparently in the summer this plant gets a really nice red color. I'm already getting started filling up those lagoons!

BACPS Spring 2014 meeting

The Bay Area Carnivorous Plant Society meeting was held Saturday at the UC Botanical Garden. I'm a UCBG member, and try to visit whenever possible.

Yucca rostrata at the UCBG entrance.

On this day the guy working the entrance saw the Drosera burmanii I had brought for the bring and brag and pointed me towards the BACPS meeting. Because I was headed to the meeting, I avoided my typical first stop, the spectacular Arid House.

The UCBG Arid House, home of insane, spectacular plants.

If you live in or occasionally visit the Bay Area you must make time to visit the UCBG. It's a truly astonishing garden.

In any case, I got to the meeting a bit early, and sat around chatting with a few folks before the things got started. I also traded a smallish D. filiformis Florida All-Red leaf cutting for a few stems of Utricularia gemniscapa with Howard, who I met on TerraForums and who blogs about carnivorous plants (in Japanese) at tanukimo.blogspot.com. Use Google Translate – it's interesting to read if you like Utrics (like I do).

A bit before 11 the folks from California Carnivores arrived and set up shop. The BACPS members swarmed their tables before they even got the plants out of the box for display. I think I overheard Damon make a joke about setting up barricades to hold back the zombies, and that's pretty much what I felt like.

Shamelessly swarming around the vendor table. I was right there with everybody.

Most of the plants for sale were temperate and pygmy sundews, VFTs, and some truly beautiful Sarracenia. I allowed myself one plant, a very fine Sarracenia x 'Abandoned Hope'.

The presentations for the meeting were a talk by Damon Collingsworth of California Carnivores and Barry Rice of (among other things) Sarracenia.com about preparing one's plants to enter into the show in June, and a slideshow by Damon about Venus Flytraps in the wild. The presentations were lots of fun!

Barry Rice and Damon Collingsworth talking about preparing plants for the annual show.

Slide of a Venus flytrap that ate a frog. Nice catch!

After the talks we had the Bring and Brag. I showed off my D. burmanii Humpty Doo, and received compliments from a number of people (including Fernando Rivadavia, which was cool). We also saw this funny pair of Pinguicula cyclosecta, one of which has dormant winter leaves, while the other is already in full carnivorous summer foliage.

I loved the color on these P. cyclosecta. And it's cool to see the different leaves side by side.

Also they were planted in this funny pot. How cute!

The auction came next, and then the raffle. Several large Heliamphora heterodoxa x minor divisions brought in a pretty penny. At the raffle I got a Sarracenia leucophylla (Hurricane Creek, AL) and a small pot of D. scorpioides.

This division went for like $30. I'd like to grow Heliamphora someday, but right now it's a bit much for me.

After this I hung around a bit more, convinced myself not to buy another Sarracenia, and then headed home. It was a lot of fun, and I came away with a few new plants and the desire to grow more to share at the next auction. Here's the final count at home.

Clockwise from back left, Sarracenia leucophylla (Hurricane Creek, AL), Sarracenia x 'Abandoned Hope', Drosera scorpioides, Utricularia gemniscapa, mixed Utricularia.

 And because that's not a particularly lovely photo, I'll leave you with this Dudleya pulverulenta, which was so large and so glaucous that it stopped me in my tracks, arms full of plants, to take a picture. That's what the UCBG is all about.

This Dudleya is like 18 inches in diameter. What a wonderful plant.