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.

Sarracenia out back

It's still early in the season for Sarracenia, but my plants have gotten a bit of a head start, considering that spring arrived in the Bay Area sometime in mid-January. I went out and took some photos in the early evening today, since the diffuse light shows them to much better effect that the glaring sun that they enjoy during the middle of the day.

The first thing I want to highlight is Sarracenia 'Red Bug'. I picked this plant up from California Carnivores just under 3 weeks ago, and it is looking great out in the full sun. Check out the tan it's got going.

S. 'Red Bug' and Drosera filiformis on March 17th.

S. 'Red Bug' on April 2nd.

Now I can see why it's got that name.

Nearby my Sarracenia 'Abandoned Hope' has popped a couple of big, beautiful pitchers.

I love the orange-yellow-red coloring.

These are still really fresh too – they should color up even more deeply over the summer.

I've finally got a few new pitchers on my poor Sarracenia purpurea that got all torn up by pigeons last year.

This was one of my first carnivores. It makes me nostalgic.

I love how the new pitchers have this sort of porcelain glow to them – they almost don't look real.

Speaking of glowing, since the sun was heading down I got a great backlit shot of the newest pitchers on my Sarracenia minor

It's lit up like a lamp. That would be a cool lamp!

This one gets nice and dark orange after a couple of months in the sun too.

The nearby Sarracenia ×formosa (which is S. psittacina × minor) only has two pitchers so far, but they're developing nicely.

"Formosa" means beautiful in Latin. Appropriate!

I like the color gradient running down the pitcher tube a lot.

There's a large clump of Sarracenia alata red throat that has 3 big flowers and is just sending up its first pitcher.

These flowers are so cute coming up from the rhizomes this way.

I'm looking forward to having a big clump of pitchers soon.

I received this Sarracenia ×moorei (which is S. flava × leucophylla) as a bonus plant in a trade a couple months ago. I had no idea how it was going to look.

Charming closeup here.

Looking pretty nice so far! I'm hoping the colors become more distinct as the season progresses.

My original Sarracenia flava has essentially no coloring to speak of (though it's not anthocyanin-free). What it does have is some of the most nicely-shaped and proportionate pitchers I've seen anywhere.

Some of these pitchers are bug-damaged. Darn!

Now that is a lovely plant. If my conditions were more controlled I bet I could grow it out into a show-worthy specimen.

I've got a young Sarracenia oreophila that has some really nice venation going on.

Enjoying the last rays of sun.

It'll be another year at least before the pitchers are big and mature, but I bet it will look fantastic.

Meanwhile my large clump of S. oreophila has the nicest composition of any of my pots outside.

A nice little S. oreophila vignette.

Wonderful plant!

I'm very excited for the next few months.

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!

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.

Challenges growing Sarracenia outdoors

I don't post about my Sarracenia very often. In large part that's because they're really difficult to photograph with my phone camera, which loves to focus on the wood grain of the fence in the background rather than the pitcher in the foreground. Whatever.

In any case, here's how they looked today.

The outdoor growing area is still pretty haphazard.

First of all, they are definitely pitchering pretty nicely, especially that Sarracenia leucophylla in the background, and the Sarracenia flava  var. maxima on the left. I've seen some good rhizome expansion too, especially on the S. leucophylla.

The clones I have are pretty attractive. The S. flava maxima has wonderful lid shape, and the Sarracenia minor is really nicely colored. However, there are definitely problems. First of all, I think this area is much too windy. Check out these broken pitchers.

Broken S. flava pitcher.

Broken S. alata pitcher.

Broken S. minor pitcher.

It can get powerfully windy in my neighborhood and I think it's just too much for these pitchers. The breaks are too clean to be chewing, and the pitchers are often younger, so I don't think it's just too many bugs.

I also have a problem with pigeons. I've seen them perch on my plants and peck out the bugs. Pretty sure that's what happened to Sarracenia 'Abandoned Hope'.

I still haven't Abandoned Hope yet!

And my Sarracenia purpurea has been totally shredded.

Someday my S. purpurea will be back in shape.

However, there's new growth on both of these, so it's not like they can't bounce back. I guess I'll just have to be okay with somewhat ratty looking Sarracenia until I put together a nicer growing area. Oh well! Growing carnivores is always a learning process.

One big plus I've noticed lately is that the S. leucophylla "Hurricane Creek" that I won at the Spring BACPS meeting auction has finally started sending up a pitcher. I couldn't get a decent picture, but that's exciting! I had given up on it almost.

Terrestrial Utricularia

Utricularia are the most widespread and diverse of all carnivorous plants, even more so than Drosera. Also known as bladderworts, for their bladder-like traps (which are worth reading about on Wikipedia, though I won't go into it here), they are typically grown in cultivation not for the traps (which are usually hard to see) or their foliage (which ranges from "almost invisible" to "somewhat interesting"), but for their flowers. The most impressive species are from section Orchidioides, which are – alas – among the more difficult to grow. However, even the easy (and sometimes weedy) terrestrial Utricularia can have charming displays of flowers. I like to grow them because they're peculiar and a little offbeat, and I can dream about a nice big bloom show to share with people someday.

A small but healthy plug of U. sandersonii blue.

This is Utricularia sandersonii, the blue-flowering variety. U. sandersonii are sometimes referred to as "angry bunnies" because of the shape of their flowers. I bought this chunk from Natch Greyes a couple months ago, and it has held steady and shown some slight growth. The U. livida I got at the same time is doing great, but this is just fine. I'm sure it'll take off eventually.

Typical U. sandersonii bouncing back from a rough time in transit.

This typical form of U. sandersonii I got in a giveaway over at Terra Forums. I think it sat in my garage for a day or two because no one told me it had been delivered, so it was a bit more beat up than the blue form. It's got some new growth, and also has plenty of mosses growing to keep it company (heh).

The peculiar leaves of U. praelonga are cool, although apparently it's difficult to get to flower.

Utricularia praelonga is an odd species that produces two kinds of leaves – the typical terrestrial utric leaves, as seen on the U. sandersonii and U. livida, and also long, grass-like leaves. This one I received in a trade for a couple of my D. burmannii seedlings.

U. calycifida looking a bit beat up from shipping.

My newest Utric is U. calycifida, which I received in the NASC auction (I still need to make a post about those plants, now that they've all arrived). It's still recovering from shipping, but is a very nice specimen. U. calcyfida has largish leaves and long flower stalks, when you can convince it to bloom. Very much looking forward to it settling in.

My Utricularia livida is the only one I've posted about before, on account of it having popped out a bloom on one of its old stalks. Here's that stalk now, with two tiny flowers.

Itty bitty U. livida flowers.

But the really exciting thing is clear when you look much closer.

Someday I want a healthy carpet of foliage and full stand of flower stalks from this U. livida.

Three new scapes coming up! It's also really filling up the pot, which is great. This is supposed to be a very weedy species, which is fine, since it's in its own container. That just means it will fill out better. Really looking forward to seeing these develop further.

Speaking of containers, here's a shot of where I grow my Utrics.

My (somewhat messy) terrestrial Utricularia area.

As you can see, there are individual glass containers for each specimen (almost – the U. praelonga and U. sandersonii typical are bunking together right now). This is somewhat inefficient in terms of space, but it keeps them from infesting other pots, and will make for handsome displays once they start blooming (it's important to think positive). Also these glass things can be found for cheap if you keep an eye open.

On a final note, my Sarracenia are developing nicely, and originally I'd hoped to post about them today. However, the gods of photography frowned on my attempts to get decent closeup shots (the camera software on my phone is terrible), so all I have is one peek at Sarracenia minor. It's getting there!

S. minor with some decent coloration going. Looking forward to seeing full pitchers!

The S. flava and S. leucophylla each have pitchers almost 18 inches tall right now, but we'll have to wait for different conditions to get a photo.

Alright. It's extremely hot now, and my bedroom gets afternoon sun. I'm going to retreat to the garage, which stays cool, and read a book. I hope my D. spiralis can handle a couple days of heat before the temperature drop this weekend.

Sarracenia breaking dormancy

I mentioned last week that my Sarracenia were finally breaking their dormancy, but I was unable to get a decent picture. They've put on a little size since then, so today it's time to make that post.

S. alata (Stone County, MS) "Heavy Veins." Hope the veins are as nice as the name implies!

I got these plants back in mid February, in my first carnivorous plant trade. I actually didn't have much in the way of carnivorous trading material then, so I was lucky to find someone looking for cold hardy succulents. I was able to send him a couple Agave americana and Agave parryi var. huachucensis, as well as a bonus Sempervivum. In exchange I received S. minor (Orange County FL), S. flava typical, S. alata (Stone County, MS) "Heavy Veins," and S. leucophylla "Titan." None of them are registered cultivars, but it's nice to get species rather than hybrids to start off my collection, especially a few with location data.

S. minor (Orange County, FL).

I'll be the first to admit – I barely knew anything about growing Sarracenia when these showed up. This contributed to my anxiety as they sat around in the backyard, doing nothing. Meanwhile people all over the internet had pictures of big, handsome pitchers coming up.

S. flava, typical. Also a VFT photobomb.

The first growth I noticed was during a break in our 10 days or so of serious, constant rain, but I don't really think the rain is what woke them up. I think they were just adjusting to their new digs, sending out some new roots, and getting ready for the show. I was super relieved when I saw the growth starting up – it would have been embarrassing if I had made some catastrophic error and lost the plants.

S. leucophylla "Titan." This was the first of the four to wake up.

According to the grower, these are divisions from nice mature plants, 8 to 10 years old. I can't wait to see what the full flush of summertime pitchers looks like. In the mean time I'm enjoying seeing the funny little proto-pitchers push up noticeably every day.

My S. purpurea, which I bought from the Cactus Jungle, doesn't go dormant to quite the same degree as other species. It's been pitchering pretty regularly for the last month and a half or so, and continues growing nicely. There are also ants and gnats in the pitchers. Good job little guy!

S. purpurea. This plant is growing very vigorously, with loads of new pitchers in just a few weeks.