New plants and last days of T.R.A.P.

Howdy howdy everybody!

Yesterday two new epiphytic Utricularia arrived to my collections and these plants are
  U. longifolia x alpina  and
  U. nephrophylla x geminiloba.
Thanks to Dafinka from darwiniana.cz.

Clockwise from bottom front, U. nephrophylla x geminiloba, U. alpina x endresii, U. longifolia, U. longifolia x alpina, U. geminiloba and U. nephrophylla

Last week I received plants fron CarniSana, which I already gave you a brief review. Gorgeous Heliamphora heterodoxa x minor, which was the main course of the packet was over my expectations with many vigorous growing points.

Heliamphora heterodoxa x minor

Heliamphora heterodoxa x minor

Hopefully the Heli will thrive in my so called "highland" terrarium, of which I don't have specific information of temperatures or humidity, but as soon as soon as I have some some more info I will update it here. This highland terrarium is a used aquarium on near floor level and under a window to provide extra cooling.

Much Changes have come in growing my plants because I had to fit my plants in two terrariums, which made me to sort these plants into two groups, heat lovers and cool growers. Among heat lovers is my newest glistering jewel, the last Queensland sister I did not own, funny looking Drosera prolifera.

Lowland terrarium

Wet corner including terrestrial Utricularia and Genlisea

So here is the T.R.A.P. shown. In the terrarium "heat lovers" there are all of my Nepenthes pitcher plants, Queensland and petiolaris complex Drosera, Drosera oblanceolata and nearly all of my terrestrial Utricularia and Genlisea. After long search of easy to grow Genlisea I found at last G. flexuosa and pygmea which are flowering to me at the moment.

Genlisea flexuosa from Furnas

Genlisea pygmea

Cool growers include epiphytic Utricularia, leftovers of Drosera, Genlisea and Utricularia plus Heliamphora and Brocchinia reducta, which is one of the most vigorously growing plants recently in my collections. Arrived with three leaves, which are already long gone, and now looks like this. Still nothing happened in the size, but the growing speed is good.

Brocchinia reducta

"Highland" terrarium

Drosera kaiteurensis soon to bloom

Well everything can't go perfectly jo my lamp decided to go dark and my plants in "highland" terrarium need to grow under warm white fluorescent tube until I get another plant tube.

One of the best things happened  (right after getting my stitches away)  in this week is that one of my most waited plant hybrids has become reality in form of U. asplundii x jamesoniana, which you can see pictures of in CPPF or take a look at the original thread in CPUK. Now to just wait until someone crosses U. asplundii or U. jamesoniana with U. campbelliana or U. quelchii. My list of wanted plants just keeps getting longer and longer when  U. asplundii x jamesoniana is added to it. 
   I have seed grown U asplundii but they are still pretty small plants and in next season I'm considering of buying U. jamesoniana which is said to be a bit challenging because of it's small size, which is why it is easily overgrown by moss.

So my small scale holiday is soon to over and for me it is return to study writing, communication, adobe illustrator, school security and history of arts among many other subjects. Hopefully studies to become a media assistant will also helm me make this blog better to read for you all. Next blog post will most likely focus on temperate plants and how I will prepare them for dormancy. Until my next post, happy growing and sunshine to all of you!

Medium sized update with photos #1

Howdy howdy. Long time no see huh. Well I can't see you but... you get the idea. Holiday is over and today I took part in qualification test for career college, the results come during next week's Friday. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Sometimes it's refreshing to start a meal with dessert so here we go with some Utricularia flowers.

U. sandersonii, which I get to bloom first time in my whole hobby!

U. dichotoma, first time blooming in my collection.Notice powdery mildew which attacked the flowerstalk.

U. uniflora took it's time to bloom but glad it did. Seems like this one likes the summery heat.

Then to my wannabe highland terrarium, which is for now a plastic box on my floor. The upper row D. venusta, G. roraimensis, U. asplundii and U. reniformis small form. Middle earth, I mean row D. natalensis with location data, D. roraimensis, D. regia. The sugar on the bottom is D. felix, U, nephrophylla and dead D. graomogolensis. D. graomogolensis was a bit ex tempore but I agreed to swap it for few sundews but unluckily the plant arrived when I was on my holiday and my parents potted it.
Rule number X: Never let your parents pot your carnivorous plants, unless they're carnivorous plants hobbyists too. Mine aren't.

U. asplundii are growing bigger leaves than before. I'll pot them in spahnum soon and hopefully it will improve their growing.

D. natalensis from Inanda road, Waterfall, Kwa-Zulu, Natal, RSA and D. kaiteurensis. Oops! File name of the picture says D. roraimensis. Maybe I'm getting old or I just have too many plants. :D

Drosera venusta is a true fighter. Now it is growing perfectly with even a flowerstalk.

I was shocked when I came home and saw my Darlingtonia with only few leaves. The biggest leaves had dried away and below is a picture that might reveal the reason why it all happened.

The base of the plant has turned purple coloured, which I think might be a symptom of fungal infection. Well at least I treated My Darling with some fungicide. But if you recognize this symptom and it is about something else than fungal infection, please comment or e-mail. 

Well here are the pictures for now. During the next week I'll post more  Take care of yourself and your plants, beware closed greenhouses. Happy growing!

Week of awesomeness!

This week is pretty awesome. You want to know why? Of course you do.
It is not for the weather, this day has been so far very cloudy and rainy day indeed but at least I get some rainwater collected for my plants. Plants, they are the reason why this day is awesome.

Three days ago I got one of the plants that I've adored since I googled Nepenthes and saw picture of pig beautiful pitcher of Nepenthes veitchii. I had this plant for a while but during the long, dark Finnish winter the plant got mold and after a long fight with no fungicides (They don't sell them for normal consumers in Finland. I don't know why.) the plant was infected by powdery mildew so badly that I had to throw the plant outside to the snow, all this to protect the rest of my precious collection. Now I have fungicide and a new Nepenthes veitchii 'Golden Perisome' which is of course a lowland form. Some lowland forms of N. veitchii seem to have more elongated pitcher shape compared to highland forms. In google only picture of this plant's adult pitcher is at http://www.nepenthesaroundthehouse.com/nveitch.htm and it does not seem too elongated compared to for example picture of a plant at http://www.cpjungle.com/nucvei.htm.
   So first addition to my collection in this week was Nepenthes veitchii 'Golden Perisome.' Thanks for CPUK's pmatil for this amazing plant!

N. veitchii 'Golden Perisome'

When potting N. veitchii I remembered that 2 of my Nepenthes pitcherplants have declined to grow for me for a while. These two Neps are N. albomarginata and N. ampullaria 'BR x H.' During thei repotting I noticed why they haven't grown well for a while. First reason for their reduced growth was of course peat based soil that has become like a brick. Second reason but this is mainly for Nepenthes ampullaria, it's roots have become massive. I swear in the pot there were many about 20cm(7.8") long roots, which had grown through the bottom gravel of the pot. Now the two plants have been repotted into fresh sphagnum and sealed in plastic bags for few days to improve their recovery by raising the humidity near to 100%.

N. ampullaria 'Brunei Red' x 'Harlequin' recovering.

Second are the plants that I received two days ago, Utricularia livida and Utricularia sandersonii. I've had these both in my collections earlier but they both somehow died. U. sandersonii died in sunburn and U. livida was first overgrown by moss and after that happened something I'm uncertain of and the plant just threw in the towel. Thank you Matilda from Finnish carnivorous plants forum for these!

And the best for the last! Yesterday's packet, which included Darlingtonia californica, Drosera schizandra, Pinguicula crystalina, Pinguicula grandiflora and Sarracenia flava var rubricorpora, of which the first 2 are my most waited plants.

My Darling in a pot with diameter of 18cm (7")

Potting mix is pure sphagnum and the plant is potted in a big white plastic pot and placed im my greenhouse.

Sarracenia flava. var. rubricorpora will hopefully show it's characteristic coloration later in this season.

"What are you taking pictures of? Get off my yard"

For me it is now baking for my graduation party, yes I'm a high school graduate and I shall press the fancy white cap on my head in a week. Last in this post, here's a picture of a squirrel wishing all of you a happy summer and great weather for holidays. Cheers!

Focusing on: Utricularia 'Lavinia Whateley'

Hello!

This is my first post in which I'm focusing only for one plant. The lucky plant to be chosen today was U. calycifida 'Lavinia Whateley.' I've owned this particular plant since 2011 and it is a very steady grower just like the typical U. calycifida. 

This particular cultivar differs from the rest of it's species by having white flowers and plain green  leaves instead of having any purple colored veins on top of their leaves. For fisrt year for me this plant did nothing but grow new leaves but afterwards started producing beautiful white flowers.

I'm not 100% sure about this but I think this plant likes the sandy top, which I use to prevent moss growing on my utrics. Soon after this plant received it's sand layer the plant started to grow another flowerstalk. Flooding this plant's tray seems to also make this plant happy and improve growth.

 

Flowers are about the same size as typical U. calycifida but without pinkish to violet coloration, which kinda makes the normal plant's flowers to seem more attractive. Flowers seem to be self fertile but I haven't got any seeds from this plant yet, so maybe helping the self pollination with a toothpick should do the trick. Just remember that if you self pollinate a cultivar and sell or swap the seeds you should not name them as their mother plant but motherplant x self.

.

Other registered cultivars of U. calycifida are for example U. 'Asenath Waite,' U. 'Cthulhu,' U. 'Yog-Sothoth' and U. 'Mrs. Marsh'

This kind of update today but  tomorrow I will write another one wtth stuff about my new plants.

Not dead yet! + New plants

Hello everybody!

First of all apologies for being not so active writing here but I have my reasons. I had the worst flu I've ever had with some fever(not Bieber fever, Justin Bieber visited Finland recently though and a friend of mine went to his concert and liked it) so I really had no energy to update this blog. I've also traveled a bit and working on some other important projects.

Summer is luckily just around the corner here in eastern Finland. Weather forecast shows that during next 10 days temperatures will range between +8 °C(46.4°F)  and +15°C(59°F) during days and during nights between -1(30.2°F) and +5°C(41 °F ). In May I will move the main part of my collection to the greenhouse again and also receive some of the plants that I have already booked.

Now for the main course. I have a new terraria. This old aquarium is about 74 cm (29.1") long, 33 cm (12.9") wide and 36 cm (14.2") high so it can hold in about 85 liters of water, which is roughly 22.5 US gallons. Total price for this used aluminium framed aquarium with fluorescent light with a plant tube and a 80 cm(31.5") high table was just 35 euros which equals 46 USD.


How the terraria looked soon after buying it.

The only things I really needed to add for this to work better with my plants were three walls and bottom of the terraria, which got aluminium foil cover to reflect light back to plants and make the terraria more eco friendly. Only things I need to make it work even better are the glass cover which I'm going to purchase when I have time during the next week, a PC fan from my old terrarium, a hygrometer and a thermometer. Without the glass cover humidity seems to stay between 50 and 60%, and I think my lowland nepenthes will appreciate higher humidity levels.

For now I've moved my Nepenthes pitcher plants into this new terraria. In their older growth space my Nepenthes didn't receive enough light nor humidity and that's why they look really sick now. The older terraria for Nepenthes was planned to be only temporary terrarium for them but my plans changed just a bit.


Nepenthes 'Rebecca Soper' looking a bit anemic. It will start pitcher production soon I hope.


N. albomarginata, rafflesiana, x 'Ventrata' and Utricularia longifolia settling to their new growth space.


Trying something artistic with N. ampullaria 'Brunei Red x Harlequin'


D. omissa x pulchella flowered again. Seriously, this is the easiest pygmy sundew I know. Maybe someday I could get few more easy to grow pygmy sundews. Any recommendations about which plants would fit in my criteria?

Now after lot of reading let me introduce you to my new plants.

Brocchinia reducta

D. filiformis
D. intermedia
D. intermedia x filiformis
D. rotundifolia
D. x 'obovata'

G. aurea
G. filiformis
G. hispidula
G. flexuosa 'Furnas, Minas Gerais'
G. roraimensis 'Cerro Huachamacari'

U. biloba
U. dichotoma
U. flaccida
U. minutissima 'Gunung Jerai'
U. minutissima 'Gunung Tahan'
U. monanthos
U. prehensilis
U. tricolor
U. spec. Hermanus

Thank you Krzysztof Ciesielski!

After a while my all new terraria looked like this:

I think I already need to get second and even third old aquarium to transform into a terraria. Two other terraria I have are two plastic storage boxes covered with aluminium foil, lit by megaman plant ESL with so far good results.


Couple of D. paradoxa are at last warming up to each other and are flowering at the same time. Hope to have seeds if I succeed in cross pollinating them.


Brocchinia reducta will be in terraria for a while until I will move it on my windowsill and greenhouse.


The 5 Genlisea cousins, from top left corner clockwise G. hispidula, G. filiformis, G. roraimensis 'Cerro Huachamari', G. flexuosa 'Furnas, Minas Gerais, Brazil' and G. aurea. lower corner of this pic there are also 2 blurry soon to bloom D. tomentosas.

As we Finns say in form of an old folk poem which was kind of a rule of when there's summer in Finland:

Kuu kiurusta kesään
puoli kuuta peipposesta
västäräkistä vähäsen
pääskysestä ei päivääkään.

or in English:

Moon to summer from skylark
half moon less from finch
from wagtail not too long
from swallow not a day.

The swallows have returned to Finland, so in other words summer is also here here. In summer I will again take most of my collection outdoors or to greenhouse. I have made blueprints for my bog garden and will soon turn it into reality. 

We get more light and plants start to grow better after a long winter so there will me more updates and it will surely not take me another 2 months or how long was it again, to make a new blog post.

Happy growing. Give lots of sunlight to your plants and also to yourself!

Macro shots

Hello everybody!

Recently I purchased a macro lens adapter, which is basically just 2 adapter pieces, one for the camera and one for the lens and 3 aluminum tubes. The magic this adapter set does is it makes it possible to focus the lens closer than normally by moving the lens further from the camera body.  The set cost me only about 6€ or 8$.

Here are some flowers and other small details of carnivorous plants that I took photos of.

Flower of Drosera paradoxa 

Drosera venusta

  Drosera venusta

  Drosera tomentosa Morro do Jambeiro, Grao Mogol, Minas Gerais, Brazil

Pinguicula emarginata x (moranensis x ehlersiae) leaf with a mosquito. In the middle of the winter there's a mosquito on my pinguicula's leaf. Could this possibly be a Culex pipiens molestus, a.k.a. London Underground mosquito, which can possibly lay eggs in any place with standing water?

Flower of  Pinguiula emarginata x (moranensis x ehlersiae). 

Another flower of  Pinguicula emarginata x (moranensis x ehlersiae)

Flower of Pinguicula emarginata 

Flower of Utricularia livida 'Blue'

Flower bud of Pinguicula moctezumae 

A tiny drop of water on Utricularia nelumbifolia x remiformis, showing hydrofobic properties of leaves of this plant. So far I have not seen a trait like this on my individuals of U. nelumbifolia or U. reniformis.

Leaves of Utricularia pubescens .

Flower of Utricularia nephrophylla.

I want to especially thank my readers from the United States of America for following my blog. At the moment I see that my flag counter on the right navigation bar shows 526 hits from the US and 525 hits from Finland. Also thank you readers from other countries as well for following my green life.

Spring is starting here because the temperature at the moment is only slightly over zero celsius. Soon the snow starts to melt and summer returns to the north again.

Have a happy spring!