Plants in full regalia

Look at this Utricularia longifolia.

Three flowers and more on the way!

Just look at it.

I'm very proud.

I promised U. longifolia in my last post, and here it is. I love this plant!

Seeing this bloom show (which is far from over, by the way!) had me poking around the collection looking for plants are are in a similar state of full display. Most plants don't look their best 100% of the time, but these ones at least are currently looking spectacular.

Pinguicula 'Aphrodite' has a couple of cute blooms on it.

Hey there little guys!

Insanely, I have several friends who claim to not particularly care for this ping cultivar. How can you resist that little plant! It's much too adorable.

This large Drosera prolifera is doing very well, especially considering that I've had to separate out a couple of plants from this pot recently.

I think any pot of D. prolifera will inevitably end up a clump if it's happy.

The plants don't quite have the color they did in the middle of winter when things were quite chilly in the garage, but they're still looking pretty fabulous.

The plant that really caught my eye today, and which inspired this post (besides the U. longifolia) was definitely my beloved Drosera ×Dork's Pink.

Be still my heart.

This is just incredible. Based on a rough estimate, I'd guess there are upwards of 50 active traps on this plant, perfectly arranged in this beautiful pink spiral.

Nearby, my Byblis liniflora seems frozen in time as this unspeakably delicate assembly of dew.

This is still the plant that most people notice when they visit my collection.

I keep trying to find a good similie for it. Sort of like a stand of tiny, sticky trees. Or a city skyline. Such a good plant.

One plant I don't mention much, but of which I am very proud, is this Dionaea muscipula 'Justina Davis'.

Penny for scale. Those are big traps!

This is a nice, mature rhizome, as you can see by the trap size. So far it seems to be doing pretty well under my lights. I hope it gets enough of a dormancy in the garage.

Finally, this pot contains my original Drosera capensis, which is to say, my first ever carnivorous plant. I planted it into a large pot, which was a huge mistake, but really, who can resist a mass of D. capensis?

It's a jungle in there.

Someday soon I'll probably take this out and divide it all up, but for now it's sorta fun seeing it losing its mind. Looking good there, D. capensis!

Some plants just struggle

Not every plant can be a Drosera spiralis. There are a handful of plants in my collection that always seem like they're in a slump. Drosera collinsiae is definitely like that.

On the plus side, that utric looks great.

This is a very handsome plant when it's happy, but it just seems to get deflated by everything. Heat for sure, and Pyrethrin, but also the Bayer 3-in-1, which didn't seem to affect any other plant in the collection. I can't remember the last time this one had more than 3 dewy leaves.

Another consistently wimpy plant is Drosera ×snyderi, which is D. dielsiana × nidiformis.

They actually look pretty decent right now.

There were originally 5 plants in each pot. The one on the right clearly had a bit of a crash recently, but all of them look super set back whenever I have to spray for bugs or whatever. Funny plant.

A very funny case is Drosera schizandra. I've got two pots, and they're looking pretty different right now.

Spinach anyone?

There's a little pup in the bottom of the pot actually.

They're also looking pretty different than they looked back in January. I don't think there's been enough heat to cause a crash like this, and nothing else weird has happened. Who knows? This is a famously temperamental species, after all.


This next is a funny one. I got this Pinguicula esseriana from California Carnivores a year ago. It certainly hasn't grown, and looks to have shrunk back a bit in fact.

Little guy is lost down in there!

I don't know why that would be the case, because a bit later I received some small P. esseriana starts, and those are doing much better.

Look at all the little babies.

I should really just scoop out that first one and put it in the second pot to free up some space in the tray. I wish it would put on some size!

On a more hopeful note, the itty bitty Cephalotus follicularis I got in a trade a bit ago seems to be settling in rather than dying off.

We've got a long road to go, but we're off to a good start!

I believe that's a new pitcher on the upper right, and it's certainly a new leaf on the lower right. Progress!

The Drosera hamiltonii are a funny case. These look absolutely terrible, right?

Sooooo ugly right now.

The thing is, they're just fine. I fed a bunch of plants (including these) a week ago or so, and D. hamiltonii take forever to look good after feeding. The thing is, when they look good they look really good. Weird little sundews.

Finally, a pygmy that seems to have no idea whether or not it likes me.

I love all pygmies, even the fussy ones.

Drosera spilos is the only pygmy I've got that seems to go dormant at all in my conditions, and as you can see there are a couple of them that are dormant right now, in the middle of winter. Amusingly, this is as good as this pot has ever looked. No idea why. Sorry you don't like it here as much little guy!

Plants are weird.

A post-aphid update

Back about 6 or 7 weeks ago I sprayed my collection with Bayer 3-in-1, a systemic pesticide that I heard was pretty gentle on sundews. It killed off all the aphids I could see, and they didn't come back for a while. Then a couple weeks ago a clutch of eggs must have hatched, because my Drosera aliciae had a swarm of them up the flower stalk. Here's that flower stalk now.

It's a graveyard on there.

It looks bad, but actually I'm super stoked. I didn't reapply any pesticide, but the stalk is covered with aphid skeletons, and very few living aphids. It seems that the systemic application has persisted long enough to take care of a new generation. I think I'll respray today though, just to make sure we don't see another spike once this round eventually wears out.

As I said, my plants didn't seem to mind the spraying. The only possible exception was this Drosera schizandra, but it's definitely doing better now.

I love sticky spinach.

That leaf at 5 o'clock there got burned on the tip around the time I sprayed. Can't say if that was due to the spray though, cause the nearby Utricularia praelonga had a pretty bad case of aphids, which may have also afflicted the D. schizandra. The new growth looks promising though.

I have another D. schizandra in with my Drosera 'Marston Dragon'. It's a bit hard to see beneath all the foliage, but it's doing pretty well down there.

This one seems to be doing well. I can barely see it though.

I really need to figure out what I'm doing with that dragon.

One of the plants that has been looking best lately, and that didn't mind the spraying even a little bit, is Byblis liniflora.

Love the shape of the flower stalk.

I'm really glad I started growing this plant. It's got an ethereal quality all its own, and it's been really popular with visitors to my collection. Plus the flowers are really cute.

The flowers persist for a couple days, it's cool.

I haven't yet gotten any seed from it though. This is supposed to be a super self-fertile species. Maybe I should try helping the pollination along. I definitely need to get some seed from it, cause I don't think it lives too long. Annuals are weird.

Summertime!

I guess it's summer now for real. I can tell because Drosera cistiflora is finally giving up the ghost.

Goodnight, sweet prince.

Now comes the real challenge – I've gotta get it to sleep, then keep it alive during dormancy, and then I need to wake it up in fall. Fingers crossed!

Right nearby there's some funny leaves in the Drosera adelae pot.

Mmm. Lettuce.

You can clearly see the affinity with Drosera schizandra here. This big old colony is hilarious.

In terms of summer, my Pinguicula sp. Tehuacán is leafing out into carnivorous growth, and dang this is a cute ping.

Looks like that pulling I took didn't take. Oh well.

It's got great color and nice neat leaf margins. Upturned leaf margins are one of my favorite characteristics on pings.

Finally, I made a very silly image to offer in lieu of fireworks for the Fourth.

I'm not ashamed.

It's pygmies! :-D

A study in dew

I'm off traveling right now! I took some pictures of some of my dewiest plants before I left so I could share them with you all.

Drosera hamiltonii looking about as good as they ever do. It's pretty good!

Drosera prolifera has really liked the cooler temperatures in the garage.

Drosera capensis red form leaf just showing off.

Drosera aliciae from the Community Pot. Great plant!

These are the best-looking Drosera adelae in the colony right now. Lovely!

Sundews are the coolest.

Drosera ×"Andromeda" leaf cutting (and Utricularia graminifolia flower)

Back in January I won an auction for a Drosera cistiflora that is really doing great. The grower from whom I won the D. cistiflora also included (very generously!) two leaves of Drosera ×"Andromeda", which is Drosera schizandra × prolifera. This plant is becoming more common, but it's still fairly rare and definitely a prize in any collection. I started one cutting in water, and the other I placed on some living Sphagnum moss (that I harvested from my Drosera prolifera pot). Just the other day I noticed a strike on the water-float plant!

Leaf strike!

The one on the moss hasn't done anything yet that I can tell. Moss looks great though.

Getting my Sphagnum game in order.

I'm really looking forward to seeing this guy grow in. Then I'll just need to get my hands on some Drosera schizandra and I'll have the full Three Sisters of Queensland collection!

Another exciting development today is this flower stalk on Utricularia graminifolia.

U. graminifolia has very pretty flowers.

Okay, I know it doesn't look like much right now, but right there in the middle of the photo is a flower stalk, I promise. I guess U. graminifolia has settled into its conditions pretty well. Now I want to transition it to a shallower container. I like the idea of a really shallow glass container with a layer of flowering U. graminifolia living on it. We'll see.

Speaking of Utricularia flowers, my Utricularia longifolia flower stalk is getting taller!

This is really a beast of a plant.

It's so hard to photograph that stalk with my phone camera. I'm going to need to get something proper just so I can manually control the point of focus. The tip of the flower stalk is taking on a purple tinge though. Exciting!

Finally, in other flower news there is a stalk developing on Drosera affinis.

It curls up so elegantly.

While I'm happy it's doing so well, I'm frankly not all that optimistic about seed production. I was disappointed with both Drosera madagascariensis and Drosera venusta on that front. The only South African species that have consistently set good seed for me are Drosera capensis (obviously) and Drosera aliciae. We'll see what happens though!

Another pest follow-up

So I've had a (mercifully small) problem with aphids in a couple pots lately. My Drosera anglica was worst hit, and my Drosera collinsae recovered quickly. The weirdest one has been my Drosera aliciae. I didn't document its decline particularly well, but I stuck it in the quarantine tray some time ago, and it appears to have gotten better. I think? I never found any actual aphids on it, but it was going down in the exact same way as my D. anglica (even though they were across the room from each other).

Anyway, it's flowering now, which is stupid.

What a dumb little flower stalk.

It also appears to have split into at least 3 growth points.

It's a mess in there.

Again, as with my D. anglica I'm intending to let it settle in, start growing properly again, and then repot. I'll dump all the media and wash the plant well to get rid of any residual aphids/eggs. If I get 3 plants out of it then well, all the better.

Speaking of the D. anglica, there's at least one proper growth point on it again.

It's heartening to see new growth at least.

As you can see the original crown is a huge mess. I've got no idea how it's going to develop, but I guess we'll see. I bet it'll grow well with a bit of a feeding.

In any case, my backup plant is coloring up nicely being closer to the lights.

I love how quickly this is getting red.

Sure glad I have extras!

In other news, check this out.

The flowers are smaller than I expected.

Computer, zoom and enhance.

Beautiful red color.

Drosera adelae flowers are really pretty.

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.

Update: the Summer Batch

 Back at the beginning of July I started a round of propagation I referred to as the Summer Batch. I started 4 species from seed and 4 from leaf cuttings. It's been 5 months, so let's see how things stand.

First up, the seeds. Drosera capillaris was the most successful in this respect, and I've got a couple decent-looking seedlings.

D. capillaris is a very pretty little sundew.

As well as a couple Drosera tokaiensis.

D. tokaiensis is a pretty vigorous grower usually. Hope these take off soon.

And, hilariously, one lonely little Drosera burmannii (Humpty Doo) that germinated after like 4 months.

This one took a while.

I still haven't seen any Drosera intermedia 'Cuba' sprout. I know it's not the seeds, since I've seen seed that I sent to other people germinate.

In all I'm disappointed with the seedling success rate (although pleased that D. capillaris germinated without cold stratification). I'm not sure what exactly went wrong. I think that fancy bag of peat I used may have something to do with it – the Drosera sessilifolia and D. burmannii (Hann River) that I started on my standard peat a couple months later have been doing great.

I'm more pleased with how my leaf cuttings performed, although not necessarily elated. First up, only one of my 6 Drosera adelae plants struck, although considering the current state of my main pot, this is more a blessing than anything else.

The red color is very nice on these plantlets.

On the other hand I have several nice looking plantlets of Drosera venusta that have come up. Only one of the three cuttings struck, but dang they're pretty.

This is really a lovely sundew. I wish my mature plant was growing better.

I also had pretty good luck with Drosera madagascariensis. Two of the three cuttings struck, and one even has a little stem going already.

It's already got that lean oh no.

The cutting I'm happiest about is this Drosera anglica CA x HI. If you follow the blog you'll know I recently lost the mother plant to aphids (essentially – it's still got some green but the prospects are grim). This plant is pretty much the size the mother plant was when I received it in March. Not too bad!

Really a stunning plant. I need to keep this one alive.

I'll have to start propagating off of this plant now, since I really want to be able to share this guy with the BACPS and others.

What have I learned from the Summer Batch? The first thing I learned is that I played with too many variables. Changing up the peat I use, using seed starter trays for the first time, messing with a bunch of different species – it's hard to draw a coherent picture. I definitely think that the peat is part of the problem, and I don't plant on using it again (especially since it's so expensive).

The main thing I learned is that I need to be propagating more, if only to keep generating backup plants. Now I just need to make some more room under my lights.