Tuberous sundews: A Beginning

I took a trip to California Carnivores today! Or rather, I took a trip to Bodega Bay today, and went by California Carnivores on my way home. I had a gift card burning a hole in my pocket and I knew what I wanted.

Tuberous sundews.

New plants from California Carnivores – always a happy sight.

A grower over on Terra Forums recently posted an amazing growing guide to tuberous sundews, including picture after picture of his collection. It made me eager to get started, even though I'm squeezing for every last square inch under my grow lights at the moment.

Both of the tuberous sundews I got are in section Stolonifera, which are among the more erect species. All tuberous 'dews are cool, but the upright species always stood out to me compared to the scrambling or rosetted species. This is Drosera rupicola.

And so it begins.

I liked the color, and the leaf shape is pretty nice. It's looking a little bit messy since I trimmed down the sporangia in the pot.

I'm really excited to have picked up this Drosera ramellosa. It has a really wonderful, whimsical shape.

The green makes it harder to see, but this is a very cool looking plant.

I'm hoping it'll get a bit more compact under my lights so that it can stand upright without getting floppy.

I also grabbed this little pot of Pinguicula esseriana because look how cute.

These pings are so tiny they're getting lost in the Utricularia bisquamata.

Pings are really too cute.

It was a fun day!

Carnivorous plant blogs you should be reading

Pinguicula moranensis developing some nice scalloped leaf margins.

The carnivorous plant community is bigger now than ever, but it's still pretty niche. That means there aren't that many blogs – especially compared to, say, gardening blogs, which are legion. Luckily a lot of new blogs have come online in the last year, and just recently several that appeared to have gone dormant have woken up. This post covers all the active blogs I know about – let me know if you know of any more!

By the way, all the pictures in this post are of my collection – I'm including them to make the post more fun to look at.

Very pretty color on this Drosera spatulata 'Kanto' flower.

Natch Greyes Carnivorous Plants

Between updates on his collection, field trips to carnivorous plant habitat, and growing guides this is a great all-around blog for the carnivore enthusiast. Natch has also expanded his little shop into an online nursery that has a particularly nice selection of terrestrial Utriculatria.  A bit of a Nepenthes focus, but Natch grows everything.

The Carnivore Girl

Maria has a lot of Venus Fly-Traps, and takes very cute pictures. She also hunts around for old drawings and engravings of carnivorous plants, as well as contemporary stuff. A fun read, and the only place I know of online where you can buy a Cephalotus throw pillow.

Sarracenia x 'Abandoned Hope', displaying its classic "wailing of the damned" posture.

The Pitcher Plant Project

 

A blog for the Sarracenia obsessed. Rob has a large hoop house and grows lots of anthocyanin-free clones, as well as some real weirdos. Updates usually once or twice a month, but the posts are loaded with pictures that make up for the waiting. Also has cool videos!

The Pitcher Plantation

 

An Australian Sarracenia blog that had been dormant for months and recently woke up. John is an enthusiast of Sarracenia flava, and he put together a great series recently on building artificial container bogs. As a bonus, his pitcher plants are awake while mine are dormant.

Utricularia calycifida blooming away.

Zone 6b

 

Carnivorous plants are not fragile, finicky plants that can't handle real-world conditions. Carl proves that by growing Sarracenia, Dionaea, Drosera, and Pinguicula outdoors year-round in Ontario, Canada. Quite impressive, and the plants all look great.

Hooray Plants

 

Another blog that has recently awoken from a long dormancy. Melody grows succulents, orchids, and other weird plants in addition to her Nepenthes, Sarracenia, and assorted carnivores. Lots of activity lately, and I hope she keeps updating!

Lots of action on Drosera x Carbarup (along with other pygmies).

ExB

 

Loads of phenomenal carnivore photography, especially crystal-clear macro shots of Drosera, Pinguicula, and Utricularia. I don't really understand how Tumblr works, but I love seeing the new photos. Highly recommended.

These are all the active, established carnivorous plant blogs I know of right now. Let me know if you know of any more worth watching. If you're interested in blogging about your plants but don't know how to get started feel free to shoot me an email at sundews.etc@gmail.com. I'd love to see more blog action (especially if you grow pings or utrics, but really the more the merrier)!

Drosera binata status

My big old Drosera 'Marston Dragon' is going dormant, or it is dormant, or something.

My half-dormant D. 'Marston Dragon', looking a bit ragged.

A lot of the leaves have died back, but it hasn't gone totally bare like I was expecting. It probably needs somewhat lower temperatures to go properly dormant.

My other two Drosera binata clones are looking sort of droopy too, although that's definitely also because they're too far from the lights to be as upright and happy as possible.

Droopy D. binata.

Another one!

I'm not sure how I feel about having these D. binata clones in my collection. Right now they're taking up a lot of space, and I'm really hesitant to start running more lights. The D. 'Marston Dragon' is really striking when it's in full growth, but it does require me to lift my lights way up. I dunno, it's something I'll be thinking about.

I almost prefer immature plants, like these plants I started from leave cuttings.

Cute little D. 'Marston Dragon' leaf cutting plantlets.

Or this bunch that came from flower stalk cuttings.

These are still in active growth, not going dormant at all.

What I really need to do is build some sort of windbreak so I can grow plants outside. Then it would make a lot more sense to have multiples. We'll see if that project actually gets done, hahahah.

As an addendum to this post, check out how good Drosera venusta has been looking lately.

A very lovely-looking plant lately.

The dew is looking as good as it ever has. I've heard some people talking recently about how this is a sort of odd species that will decline for no reason and then bounce back for no reason, even when conditions stay the same. I hope it settles in for me, since it's really pretty.

Long overdue potting

Several weeks ago I was very kindly gifted 2 Pinguicula by a BACPS member who invited me over for coffee. I was pretty amazingly busy at the time, and had yet to pot them up. Luckily, they seemed pretty happy to chill out there in the bags.

I especially love the leaf color on the P. agnata. Pings are adorable.

Pinguicula agnata and Pinguicula 'Pirouette' are apparently pretty vigorous and didn't mind the treatment.

I've also got a leaf cutting of Drosera capensis Bainskloof that has developed quite nicely floating in some water.

Those are impressive roots for a leaf cutting.

It's even got some pretty respectable roots. It was time to transfer to the media.

I don't have any pictures of the potting process, but it was pretty straightforward. Even mature pings don't have much of a root system, so I just sort of stuck them on the pot and piled a bit of soil around their base. For the D. capensis Bainskloof roots I made a little hole and then worked them in.

And here we are!

I bought these sandwich bags specifically to use for my plants.

Soon I can start feeding, and then it'll really grow.

The pings look pretty nice, but the leaf cutting will need a couple weeks to settle in at least. I also stuck a couple of leaves that fell off of the P. 'Pirouette' during potting into the soil. Maybe they'll strike!

Happy New Year everyone.

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.

Gemmae explosion

Happy Christmas Eve everyone! It's wintertime and my pygmies going nuts on their gemmae. Pretty much every mature species in my collection is producing gemmae, and some are really going overboard with it. It's like they've caught the Christmas spirit.

My original Drosera allantostigma is crammed full.

This is definitely too many gemmae to count.

The pot I got from Brie is looking a bit messy since I've been using it to demonstrate what gemmae are to people.

Getting gemmae everywhere.

The Drosera scorpioides I started from gemmae myself are just getting started.

These D. scorpioides are so lovely and dewy.

While the ones I got at the spring BACPS meeting are going bananas.

Packed in like grapeshot.

I believe I see gemmae even on my long-suffering Drosera pygmaea. I need to bring it forward in the tray so I can look at it more easily.

Maybe after this my D. pygmaea will finally settle in.

The Drosera helodes look almost ready to harvest.

These D. helodes look like they're about to explode.

There are a couple forming on the stem-forming Drosera dichrosepala.

That one in the back is just getting started.

While the closely-related Drosera enodes appears to just barely be getting started. Beautiful plants though!

The colors on these plants have been fantastic lately.

And finally, the most festive of them all, Drosera callistos.

Little Christmas wreaths!

Happy growing everyone. I hope your pygmies are doing just as well. And if you don't have any pygmies yet, keep an eye out on the blog – I'm going to have lots of gemmae to get rid of soon.

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.