Backyard Sarracenia update

I've been spending more time indoors with my pings and sundews lately, so I decided to have a look at what's going on outside. The light was a little funny, so the pictures are a bit funny. At least this Sarracenia minor looks sort of cute with that soft hazy light.

This is one of the prettiest pictures I've seen of my S. minor.

Really nice color on these pitchers. I love the orange and green with the white fenestrations.

My Sarracenia purpurea has also fleshed out and colored up, so that all the bird damage from last year is gone.

Nice and fat again!

I could probably afford to size up the pot again as well, but I can't imagine that happening before next year, hahahah.

This is a clone I got from the Cactus Jungle that they're calling Sarracenia "Rosy Reptile", since it's apparently the same cross as the famous Sarracenia 'Reptilian Rose', but a different selection.

Kind of a flamboyant pitcher. I like that.

S. 'Reptilian Rose' is Sarracenia oreophila "Sand Mountain" × 'Royal Ruby' (which is a natural S. ×moorei selection). I wasn't clear if this means that S. "Rosy Reptile" is a different selection of the actual cross that produced S. 'Reptilian Rose', or if someone reproduced the cross and selected this clone. I'll have to ask Anne for clarification. In any case I dig those red lips and the big pitcher lid.

I'm getting some color on Sarracenia psittacina, but I really need to pot it into something larger, since it's getting a bit cramped as is.

Poor cramped little guy.

I've got at least two divisions in there too. Excited!

I got several Venus flytraps during the NASC auction, and this Dionaea 'Dente' was among them.

Dionaea is a pretty cool genus I guess.

The rest need to recover some more from shipping, but this one's looking good!

I've got a total of 3 pitchers on Sarracenia ×formosa now. That's not a lot, but they're really pretty.

Not as big as they were at the end of last season. We'll see!

This plant is fairly low-profile and sturdy, so it bears the high winds we've had lately fairly well.

Alas, the same cannot be said for the taller plants, and this Sarracenia flava pitcher has paid the ultimate price.

The Carnivore Girl and I both have derpy S. flava now. Feels good man.

Poor goofy little pitcher.

Various goings-on

The other day I decided to try another of the aphid-busting treatments I've seen mentioned: immersion in water to drown the little bugs. I submerged Drosera burmannii and Drosera ultramafica × spatulata in distilled water for 2 days, and then brought them back out into the quarantine tray.

Looking messy post-soak.

They look a bit bedraggled, but hopefully that will have killed all the aphids themselves. There may still be eggs in the soil, so I really need to unpot these things and pot them up again fresh. I've heard that Neem oil can be effective against the pests in the soil, but that's another task. Let's give it some time to figure stuff out.

There's also something weird in my Drosera scorpioides pot.

These plants look hilarious like this.

Besides looking like hilarious aliens from the gemmae, those mounds of peat are very confusing. My friend Anne suggested it might be ants in the pot, and I really hope she's wrong. For the moment, however, I haven't seen any ants walking around, nor have I seen mealies or aphids that they sometimes start farming. I'll have to handle this pot to get at those last few gemmae, and then we'll see.

In more straight-up positive news, my Drosera helodes are flowering, having fully recovered from their gemmae-making.

D. helodes is bouncing back quickly.

I sowed some of those gemmae on a sand-topped pot but those plants are still quite young. Looking forward to seeing the flowers on these.

Out back the Sarracenia continue to go crazy. Here's Sarracenia ×formosa (which is S. psittacina × minor) with a flower bud and 2 new pitchers developing.

The specific epithet is no mistake, this is a beautiful plant.

I got this plant from Meadowview back at the end of August, and it was breathtaking when I unwrapped it and potted it up. It looked a bit dazed in my conditions for a month and then died back, so I'm really excited to see it now that it's all situated.

Finally, the first new growth is coming up on my old Sarracenia minor as well.

Little baby pitcher.

This is an exceedingly handsome plant when it's in full growth, and the pitchers from last fall are still around looking good. Can't wait to see the new flush!