Pgymy sundew update

Back in December I started a whole bunch of pygmy sundews from gemmae. Most of them have done pretty well! Let's check in.

Drosera barbigera type form on left, Drosera pulchella orange flower on right.

Drosera sargentii on left, Drosera patens on right.

Drosera ×Dork's Pink on the left, Drosera occidentalis (or lack thereof) on the right.

Drosera roseana on the left, Drosera pygmaea on the right.

Drosera paleacea giant form on the left and Drosera leucoblasta (Brookton) on the right.

Drosera ×Carbarup on the left and Drosera grievei on the right.

Drosera omissa pink flower up top and Drosera silvicola down below.

A few observations about the pygmies:

• D. occidentalis pretty much failed across the board. I think that the gemmae, being so small, dessicated on the sand before they could reach the media. It's too bad, because D. occidentalis is exactly the pygmy to most benefit by keeping the moss down. Maybe I'll do one final order.
• D. omissa is a total beast. Easily the most successful and vigorous of the batch.
•  I like the color on D. patens and D. palacea a lot.
• The gemmae that were more expensive (D. silvicola and D. sargentii, for example) haven't been as vigorous. I guess that's part of rarity.

Here's how the Pygmy Garden is shaping up.

The Pygmy Garden is looking pretty good!

There are a couple bare patches. Maybe I'll fill them in with some Drosera scorpioides and Drosera callistos.

As a bit of an aside, look at this visitor I had to the collection while I was photographing my collection.

Hi there cutie!

A cute little jumping spider on my Drosera burmannii! I plucked the little dude off because I really like them and my D. burmannii have enough to eat already.

A thief among the Sarracenia

I went out today to water my Sarracenia and I found a tricky thief laying in wait on Sarracenia leucophylla (Hurricane Creek, AL).

This is a lazy freeloading mantis.

It took a while for me to get a shot in focus and the little guy was getting a little antsy, so I don't have any better close ups. Hope he catches a couple snacks!

Also outside is my Venus fly-trap (Dionaea muscipula), which is all kinds of confused. It's growing a bunch of spring traps and is in flower.

A grim warning to careless insects.

Pretty cute! I should clip it before the seeds form at least.

On the one hand I'm pleased to see it looking so good, since it had kind of been sulking over the summer. On the other hand the flower stalk is draining energy from the plant (I should have clipped it), and winter is coming. Our winters are pretty mild though, and it's catching lots of prey, so I suspect it'll be fine. This is a tissue culture plant too, which might account for some of its weird behavior.

Finally, the Dionaea 'B-52' that I bought from Brie a month or so ago seems to be settling in and has a bit of new growth.

Getting settled in it seems.

Really looking forward to seeing the big time traps in spring!