Hello my dear readers! First of all I'm sorry for not writing here for a long time. At the moment I'm studying in career college, and my subject is audiovisual communication (graphic design and multimedia especially). Daily the career college takes me from seven to nine hours including over one hundred kilometers traveling on bus. Also my health hasn't been the best but after a surgery and few days in hospital I'm good as new and now having more time to write to you during my two week holiday.
Project T.R.A.P. comes fron Terrarium Re Arrangement Project, which is because the autumn is coming and I need to fit all my plants indoors and also fit my new plants in.
Because of my new plants and trying a new webshop I'll give you a small review of the Polish carnivorous plants webshop CarniSana, which you can find at http://www.carnisana.pl/
I left my order in the middle of the week and next day I had my first email from them on 21st of August including summary of my order, contacts and a bank account number. I paid them but during the next week they faced some unexpected problems in sending plants so they sent me my order on Monday 2nd of September, which was actually good thing for I was in the hospital when the packet was meant to originally arrive. Today I received the packet including the following plants:
Dionaea muscipula 'Bohemian Garnet' (bonus plant)
Dionaea muscipula 'Cup Trap' (bonus plant)
Drosera prolifera
Heliamphora heterodoxa x minor
All of them in best conditions as plants can be after shipping up to Finland from Poland. Also Heliamphora was shipped potted and packed carefully, plant having multiple gorgeous growing points. Two lovely small flytraps will definitely make it up for the extra week and I believe the delay in my case was just pre-winter rush when everybody wants new plants before winter.
Summary of the webshop: Absolutely great webshop. Selection is good, prices are just right, service is friendly and fast. Definitely check out if you want to have new plants before winter!
Sorry no pics for you this time butpics of my new plants and also the old ones will be included in a blog post which will be published within a week. Until then, happy growing!
Showing posts with label dionaea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dionaea. Show all posts
Thursday, September 05, 2013
Monday, June 17, 2013
The mistakes I regret in this hobby
Hello everybody!
When repotting some of my old sundews I started thinking my past in this hobby. I do regret losses of some plants and doing things wrong way and here is a blog post about them, just to show you that you can learn from your mistakes.
1. Nepenthes 'Rebecca Soper' my latest loss. Month or so ago plants three largest stems dried for no good reason so I cut them off. Few weeks ago the plant had two smaller growing points, of which one had mold attack and another just turned black. This is one of my fav neps and it was really hard to see it doing so bad. After all life was gone from the pot I just tuck my hand in the pot and scooped the media on a newspaper and I was terrified to see how the soil had become a snail and slug farm. I then took the media outside and boiled it to kill the slugs and snails and keeping them from not infesting my or my neighbor's gardens. Rule number one when dealing with ready potted plants: Replace the original, possibly slug infested soil, with your own soil mix. Also be sure to use clean pots.
2. Drosera slackii with a rule Don't buy a fancy plant without making sure you can provide it the conditions it needs. When I saw D. slackii on the internet I just thought "WHoa! A sundew that can grow up to 9 cm wide. I gotta get that now." I did not do enough googlin' about the species, which likes more cooler temperatures than I could provide to it. Well sphagnum based potting mix could have saved it but it was just too late. Do your homework so you don't need to write angst filled blog posts like this.
3. Nepenthes veitchii 'Golden Perisome' the 1st. Bought this as a lowland plant and gave it more like intermediate condition. It grew but just weaker and weaker until it got moldy. On a cold winters day I just got fed up with the plant. To protect the rest of my collection I threw N. veitchii 'Golden Perisome' the 1st into the snow. Rule number three: Remember the ventilation.
4. Nepenthes sanguinea is my second largest regretted loss in my whole time growing carnivorous plants and it died because I lost it. The plant was moved temporarily to another place for cleaning terraria. I didn't find the plant until it was too late and the plant had dried. As a brief reminder that even the most forgiving plants have their limits. But not D. capensis or U. subulata, they're almost immortal.
5. Dionaea muscipula. Almost everybody growing carnivorous plants has killed one of these. I've killed at least three of these but the one I have now has survived one or two winters already. The rule here is: Thank science for cheap tissue cultured plants so we don't need to take plants from the wilds. I wait for the news about police getting the culprits caught. (If you don't know what I'm talking about then read the previous blog post.)
6. Non registered post packets. This happened to me once: I bought few plants from this one person, who I think is very trustworthy and good seller. When choosing the shipment type I chose unregistered because it was cheapest and the packets move pretty fast in EU. Well the Finnish or the other post office lost my packet for a while and it took me was it 2 or 3 weeks to get the packet, I don't really remember. There were two plants, of which one survived and other, eventually the more expensive plant had rot. It absolutely was post office's fault but on the other hand I could have get some refunds from the post office because of what happened but past is past. Rule is: Prefer registered shipping. It really is worth it. For registered packets are handled outside of the normal packet traffic, possibilities getting registered packet in time are higher and you also get the tracking code.
7. Various Sarracenia pitcher plants. My second carnivorous plant to be grown was a Sarracenia purpurea, bought along with P. x 'Tina' and D. capensis 'Albino', which are still alive and doing fine. The problem with these plants for me was dormancy. I tried placing them in a cold sauna, a cellar, in a ventilation window and last two times in a garage and refridgerator, which were the best places for me, until I try building a bog garden. Rule for this is: Try, fail, and learn from your mistakes which kind of compresses the whole idea of this blog post.
Now after this purge from the negative past karma I'm ready to move forward and extend my growlist even more.
In case you wonder why no pictures then here's the reason, I'm on a holiday while doing some babysitting. On the other side of Finland from where I live. Here I'm just hanging out with my sister and trying to hunt some new plants for my collection. See you again in a week or so. Until then "Hakuna matata" (it means no worries) and enjoy the summer if you live on the northern hemisphere.
Also if any of you my dear readers have extras of the following then please contact me for possibility of swap or money. Plants are Utricularia longifolia x alpina, nelumbifolia x geminiloba, nephrophylla (other than white flowered form), nephrophylla x geminiloba or vice versa, nephrophylla x nelumbifolia or vice versa and 'Jitka' (quelchii x praetermissa).
When repotting some of my old sundews I started thinking my past in this hobby. I do regret losses of some plants and doing things wrong way and here is a blog post about them, just to show you that you can learn from your mistakes.
1. Nepenthes 'Rebecca Soper' my latest loss. Month or so ago plants three largest stems dried for no good reason so I cut them off. Few weeks ago the plant had two smaller growing points, of which one had mold attack and another just turned black. This is one of my fav neps and it was really hard to see it doing so bad. After all life was gone from the pot I just tuck my hand in the pot and scooped the media on a newspaper and I was terrified to see how the soil had become a snail and slug farm. I then took the media outside and boiled it to kill the slugs and snails and keeping them from not infesting my or my neighbor's gardens. Rule number one when dealing with ready potted plants: Replace the original, possibly slug infested soil, with your own soil mix. Also be sure to use clean pots.
2. Drosera slackii with a rule Don't buy a fancy plant without making sure you can provide it the conditions it needs. When I saw D. slackii on the internet I just thought "WHoa! A sundew that can grow up to 9 cm wide. I gotta get that now." I did not do enough googlin' about the species, which likes more cooler temperatures than I could provide to it. Well sphagnum based potting mix could have saved it but it was just too late. Do your homework so you don't need to write angst filled blog posts like this.
3. Nepenthes veitchii 'Golden Perisome' the 1st. Bought this as a lowland plant and gave it more like intermediate condition. It grew but just weaker and weaker until it got moldy. On a cold winters day I just got fed up with the plant. To protect the rest of my collection I threw N. veitchii 'Golden Perisome' the 1st into the snow. Rule number three: Remember the ventilation.
4. Nepenthes sanguinea is my second largest regretted loss in my whole time growing carnivorous plants and it died because I lost it. The plant was moved temporarily to another place for cleaning terraria. I didn't find the plant until it was too late and the plant had dried. As a brief reminder that even the most forgiving plants have their limits. But not D. capensis or U. subulata, they're almost immortal.
5. Dionaea muscipula. Almost everybody growing carnivorous plants has killed one of these. I've killed at least three of these but the one I have now has survived one or two winters already. The rule here is: Thank science for cheap tissue cultured plants so we don't need to take plants from the wilds. I wait for the news about police getting the culprits caught. (If you don't know what I'm talking about then read the previous blog post.)
6. Non registered post packets. This happened to me once: I bought few plants from this one person, who I think is very trustworthy and good seller. When choosing the shipment type I chose unregistered because it was cheapest and the packets move pretty fast in EU. Well the Finnish or the other post office lost my packet for a while and it took me was it 2 or 3 weeks to get the packet, I don't really remember. There were two plants, of which one survived and other, eventually the more expensive plant had rot. It absolutely was post office's fault but on the other hand I could have get some refunds from the post office because of what happened but past is past. Rule is: Prefer registered shipping. It really is worth it. For registered packets are handled outside of the normal packet traffic, possibilities getting registered packet in time are higher and you also get the tracking code.
7. Various Sarracenia pitcher plants. My second carnivorous plant to be grown was a Sarracenia purpurea, bought along with P. x 'Tina' and D. capensis 'Albino', which are still alive and doing fine. The problem with these plants for me was dormancy. I tried placing them in a cold sauna, a cellar, in a ventilation window and last two times in a garage and refridgerator, which were the best places for me, until I try building a bog garden. Rule for this is: Try, fail, and learn from your mistakes which kind of compresses the whole idea of this blog post.
Now after this purge from the negative past karma I'm ready to move forward and extend my growlist even more.
In case you wonder why no pictures then here's the reason, I'm on a holiday while doing some babysitting. On the other side of Finland from where I live. Here I'm just hanging out with my sister and trying to hunt some new plants for my collection. See you again in a week or so. Until then "Hakuna matata" (it means no worries) and enjoy the summer if you live on the northern hemisphere.
Also if any of you my dear readers have extras of the following then please contact me for possibility of swap or money. Plants are Utricularia longifolia x alpina, nelumbifolia x geminiloba, nephrophylla (other than white flowered form), nephrophylla x geminiloba or vice versa, nephrophylla x nelumbifolia or vice versa and 'Jitka' (quelchii x praetermissa).
Thursday, June 06, 2013
Taking plants from the nature
Today I was very shocked to notice the headline "More than 1,000 Venus' flytraps stolen" at http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20130530/ARTICLES/130539991
So in Wilmington's Stanley Rehder Carnivorous Plant Garden some fools dug up over thousand flytraps which is 90% of the amount of these plants in that area. Venus flytrap aka Dionaea muscipula has been listed as a vulnerable species in IUCN's listing and every plant taken from the wild takes the whole species closer to extinction.
The city of Wilmington valued that every plant's value is $20 and the value of all of the plants stolen is therefore $20, 000 but in reality the value lost is even more. Every plant that were dug up were all unique by their genes having different genes and mutations and when this many plants are taken from a single spot the vigor of the whole population gets weaker for possibilities of plant being pollinated with it's sibling-plants make plants born from this pollination a lot weaker than plants from pollination of two non related plants. That is the reason why you don't pair up any pets with their siblings.
The above is the reason why tissue culture became popular way to produce plants. Tissue culture meaning taking a piece of plant and growing it in agar with hormones and sterile conditions to produce a large amount of plants for sale and therefore for cultivation and so collecting plants from the wild is almost useless. If someone in somewhere accidentally kills a single tissue cultured flytrap it really doesn't matter because there are millions of clones of the same plant but killing a plant from the wild is killing a unique plant with no copies of it and maybe with some great genes to help strengthen the population.
I remember reading that in some bog areas in US flytraps were painted with invisible paint, which comes visible under UV light to track the plants dug up from the nature and I hope they painted these ones too to catch the one(s) who did this soon.
If you have read this post this far then you may be thinking: What can I do? I'll tell you what you can do to prevent the extinction of Dionaea muscipula. If you live in the US make absolutely sure that the plants you are going to buy are produced with tissue culture, at least you can see does the plant have "just dug up from the wild" look on their media. Avoid people who sell plants from their cars and in marketplaces. By keeping these guys not having your money they will quit taking plants from the wild because they can't get any profit. Trust only trusted companies that sell these plants. I live in Finland so it is very hard for me to say which companies are trustworthy in US and which are not but at least Sarracenia Northwest at http://www.cobraplant.com/ grow all their temperate plants themselves and take no plants from the nature. If you want more specific info about the trustworthy vendors look at carnivorous plants forums such as Carnivorous Plants UK, Terra Forums, International Carnivorous Plants Society's forum.
Be responsible and buy only tissue cultured plants for nature is our greatest treasure and taking even a single plant from the wild is stealing a piece of this treasure from everybody.
So in Wilmington's Stanley Rehder Carnivorous Plant Garden some fools dug up over thousand flytraps which is 90% of the amount of these plants in that area. Venus flytrap aka Dionaea muscipula has been listed as a vulnerable species in IUCN's listing and every plant taken from the wild takes the whole species closer to extinction.
The city of Wilmington valued that every plant's value is $20 and the value of all of the plants stolen is therefore $20, 000 but in reality the value lost is even more. Every plant that were dug up were all unique by their genes having different genes and mutations and when this many plants are taken from a single spot the vigor of the whole population gets weaker for possibilities of plant being pollinated with it's sibling-plants make plants born from this pollination a lot weaker than plants from pollination of two non related plants. That is the reason why you don't pair up any pets with their siblings.
The above is the reason why tissue culture became popular way to produce plants. Tissue culture meaning taking a piece of plant and growing it in agar with hormones and sterile conditions to produce a large amount of plants for sale and therefore for cultivation and so collecting plants from the wild is almost useless. If someone in somewhere accidentally kills a single tissue cultured flytrap it really doesn't matter because there are millions of clones of the same plant but killing a plant from the wild is killing a unique plant with no copies of it and maybe with some great genes to help strengthen the population.
I remember reading that in some bog areas in US flytraps were painted with invisible paint, which comes visible under UV light to track the plants dug up from the nature and I hope they painted these ones too to catch the one(s) who did this soon.
If you have read this post this far then you may be thinking: What can I do? I'll tell you what you can do to prevent the extinction of Dionaea muscipula. If you live in the US make absolutely sure that the plants you are going to buy are produced with tissue culture, at least you can see does the plant have "just dug up from the wild" look on their media. Avoid people who sell plants from their cars and in marketplaces. By keeping these guys not having your money they will quit taking plants from the wild because they can't get any profit. Trust only trusted companies that sell these plants. I live in Finland so it is very hard for me to say which companies are trustworthy in US and which are not but at least Sarracenia Northwest at http://www.cobraplant.com/ grow all their temperate plants themselves and take no plants from the nature. If you want more specific info about the trustworthy vendors look at carnivorous plants forums such as Carnivorous Plants UK, Terra Forums, International Carnivorous Plants Society's forum.
Be responsible and buy only tissue cultured plants for nature is our greatest treasure and taking even a single plant from the wild is stealing a piece of this treasure from everybody.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Colours of the Fall
Hello! Long time no see.
I have a good reason why I haven't written here for a while. I just had the big tests that mean a lot for my future and I really wanted some time to focus on them.
Thanks for everybody reading my blog. I was just amazed when I saw that on 20.9.2012 my blog had 59 pageviews. Only during one day. Total of my pageviews are now over 4000 and it's all thanks to you. Thank you for reading my blog.
In my previous post I promised you some news about my Sarracenia. This blog post I'll start with my favourite. Sarracenia psittacina.
Followed by some hybrids including Sarracenia purpurea
This year I'm especially proud of all of my North american plants. Flytraps made a big suprise this year growing better than ever because of greenhouse conditions.
Flytrap in this picture used to have only those 2 brown leaves which you can see dried in the picture. Plant then started producing nicer leaf rosette after repotting and made another plant right beside another. They will grow into some beautiful flytraps during next summers.
Drosera venusta was first happy about greenhouse conditions but then started dying the biggest rosette and now the plant has smaller rosettes which are growing well.
Drosera binata grew all nicely during summer forming many flowerstalk but didn't produce any seeds.
Non carnivorous bromeliad Cryptanthus sp. turned all red in the greenhouse Ending this blog post with flowers
Drosera capensis. Not special but still pretty.
Pinguicula moctezumae. Received this plant from Zlatokrt.
The plant had a flowerstalk when it arrived and after a while it flowered and is now pollinated with pollen of Pinguicula emarginata because it was only other Pinguicula blooming at the moment I'll be waiting for seeds of Pinguicula moctezumae x emarginata to rippen. I also made this cross vice versa pollinating P. emarginata with P. moctezumae's pollen so I will hopefully have Pinguicula emarginata x moctezumae seeds soon too.
That's all for now. Soon I will put my temperate plants in regridgerator for their winter dormancy and I will then focus on my tropical plants. See you later.
I have a good reason why I haven't written here for a while. I just had the big tests that mean a lot for my future and I really wanted some time to focus on them.
Thanks for everybody reading my blog. I was just amazed when I saw that on 20.9.2012 my blog had 59 pageviews. Only during one day. Total of my pageviews are now over 4000 and it's all thanks to you. Thank you for reading my blog.
In my previous post I promised you some news about my Sarracenia. This blog post I'll start with my favourite. Sarracenia psittacina.
Followed by some hybrids including Sarracenia purpurea
This year I'm especially proud of all of my North american plants. Flytraps made a big suprise this year growing better than ever because of greenhouse conditions.
Flytrap in this picture used to have only those 2 brown leaves which you can see dried in the picture. Plant then started producing nicer leaf rosette after repotting and made another plant right beside another. They will grow into some beautiful flytraps during next summers.
Drosera venusta was first happy about greenhouse conditions but then started dying the biggest rosette and now the plant has smaller rosettes which are growing well.
Drosera binata grew all nicely during summer forming many flowerstalk but didn't produce any seeds.
Non carnivorous bromeliad Cryptanthus sp. turned all red in the greenhouse Ending this blog post with flowers
Drosera capensis. Not special but still pretty.
Pinguicula moctezumae. Received this plant from Zlatokrt.
The plant had a flowerstalk when it arrived and after a while it flowered and is now pollinated with pollen of Pinguicula emarginata because it was only other Pinguicula blooming at the moment I'll be waiting for seeds of Pinguicula moctezumae x emarginata to rippen. I also made this cross vice versa pollinating P. emarginata with P. moctezumae's pollen so I will hopefully have Pinguicula emarginata x moctezumae seeds soon too.
That's all for now. Soon I will put my temperate plants in regridgerator for their winter dormancy and I will then focus on my tropical plants. See you later.
Tuesday, July 03, 2012
Greenhouse
Hello. I now have a greenhouse, or actually ma family has one. We build it up in the mid june and most of my plants have been growing there since then. Here are some results of the greenhouse cultivation in Finland.
Flytrap is getting some nice colour.
D. spatulata planted in snaps glass is blooming
Drosera spatulata 'Bloody Red' showing some colour and blooming
The mass bloom of U. livida 'Blue Flower
Increased ammount of light has affected to colour of the U. livida 'Blue Flower''s leaves which have turned partially a bit salmon colourred
Utricularia bisquamata flowering first time for me. For a while this plant seemed to be dying but then I took it to the greenhouse. First it conquered the whole pot and then made few nice flowerstalks.
Drosera tomatosa.. sorry Drosera tomentosa gained nice red as tomato colourration and looks like really thriving in the greenhouse.
Drosera regia seedlings. Mataveri from CPUK sent me about ten seeds of this species and luckily 2 seeds germinated.
Drosera felix growing lots of flowerstalks but not looking too happy by the look of its leaves
My Cryptanthus sp. grows nicely alongside with my Utricularia
Drosera oclanceolata looks now a bit pinkish
Drosera omissa x pulchella is the plant which changed my opinion about pygmy sundews. I used to think that they're not anything special or even cute. Not I'd like to have more but the growing space that I can offer to the plants is pretty much taken.
A bug climbing on Sarracenia leaves. This bug later became food for the venus flytrap.
Flytrap is getting some nice colour.
D. spatulata planted in snaps glass is blooming
Drosera spatulata 'Bloody Red' showing some colour and blooming
The mass bloom of U. livida 'Blue Flower
Increased ammount of light has affected to colour of the U. livida 'Blue Flower''s leaves which have turned partially a bit salmon colourred
Utricularia bisquamata flowering first time for me. For a while this plant seemed to be dying but then I took it to the greenhouse. First it conquered the whole pot and then made few nice flowerstalks.
Drosera tomatosa.. sorry Drosera tomentosa gained nice red as tomato colourration and looks like really thriving in the greenhouse.
Drosera regia seedlings. Mataveri from CPUK sent me about ten seeds of this species and luckily 2 seeds germinated.
Drosera felix growing lots of flowerstalks but not looking too happy by the look of its leaves
My Cryptanthus sp. grows nicely alongside with my Utricularia
Drosera oclanceolata looks now a bit pinkish
Drosera omissa x pulchella is the plant which changed my opinion about pygmy sundews. I used to think that they're not anything special or even cute. Not I'd like to have more but the growing space that I can offer to the plants is pretty much taken.
A bug climbing on Sarracenia leaves. This bug later became food for the venus flytrap.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Plants starting to wake up
Howdy! Last week I took my North American plants out of my refrigerator and this is how they look now.
Flytrap
S. psittacina. The second growing point has died but the one left is starting to flower again.
S. purpurea hybrid looks very good at the moment.
S. x readii looks a bit dead but I hope it will fix after it starts to get more light.
I had my 18th birthday earlier in this month and one of my presents came from my sister. An orchid. She said to me that "I don't usually give men flowers but I think I dare to make an exception for you." :D
Nice small Phalaenopsis with leaf diameter about 30 cm. Flowerstalks are about 35 cm high and the color of the flowers is very lovely.
A mutant flower.
As I've heard you can notice a healthy orchid when you look at its roots. I think This is pretty healthy little plant.
Also my oldest Phal is blooming.
The spring is soon here and it's lovely to get some new plants soon! That's all for now and maybe I will have more flowers for my next blog post.
Flytrap
S. psittacina. The second growing point has died but the one left is starting to flower again.
S. purpurea hybrid looks very good at the moment.
S. x readii looks a bit dead but I hope it will fix after it starts to get more light.
I had my 18th birthday earlier in this month and one of my presents came from my sister. An orchid. She said to me that "I don't usually give men flowers but I think I dare to make an exception for you." :D
Nice small Phalaenopsis with leaf diameter about 30 cm. Flowerstalks are about 35 cm high and the color of the flowers is very lovely.
A mutant flower.
As I've heard you can notice a healthy orchid when you look at its roots. I think This is pretty healthy little plant.
Also my oldest Phal is blooming.
The spring is soon here and it's lovely to get some new plants soon! That's all for now and maybe I will have more flowers for my next blog post.
Monday, December 05, 2011
Waiting for Christmas
Hey everybody! Waiting for Christmas? I am, because it is the best day of the year. No job, no school, just being with family and having fun.
Unfortunately there's a dark side of christmas. It is in winter and winter in Finland is very very cold and dark. Plants slow down the growth speed and temperate plants must go to dormancy. But it makes me feel happpy when I watch videos about carnivorous plants. There are some videos or users in youtube that I'd like to recommend to everyone who's into carnivorous plants.
How to take care for a venus flytrap by expert village is the fist one in my list because the videos of expert village give you good, maybe a bit too narrow overview of the whole hobby.Videos of expertvillage have something to say about other carnivorous plants than just the venus flytrap but the flytrap really cathces the highlight in their videos.
Monthly carnivorous plant care by SarraceniaNorthwest. This is so far the best account for overview videos. They show things around their nursery, talk about care for carnivorous plants and show their own plants. new video comes out monthly but many of the old ones have been deleted somewhy. :(
Sundewman's videos. They're absolutely amazing, cool and lovely. I love the way he describes each of the species and hybrids separately and tells his own observations. You should watch these if you're a sundew lover.
Few days ago I changed the top pic of this blog to a bit more personal and to fit better on the blogs subject. Hope you like the pitcher of my Cephalotus follicularis.
I will take pictures of my plants during this week and update my blog again later.
It is really amazing to think that I've been writing this blog for almost a year and I'm happy to see that my blog has over 1600 pageviews and traffic from 43 countries. Hope you have enjoyed reading this blog and would like to see more posts in future too.
During the time I couldn't update my blog I got few new seeds and even tried growing some pygmy sundews from gemmae. Seeds of D. burmannii from Humpty Doo, Australia and gemmae of D. omissa x pulchella, thanks to Dieter!
Happy Christmas time!
Unfortunately there's a dark side of christmas. It is in winter and winter in Finland is very very cold and dark. Plants slow down the growth speed and temperate plants must go to dormancy. But it makes me feel happpy when I watch videos about carnivorous plants. There are some videos or users in youtube that I'd like to recommend to everyone who's into carnivorous plants.
How to take care for a venus flytrap by expert village is the fist one in my list because the videos of expert village give you good, maybe a bit too narrow overview of the whole hobby.Videos of expertvillage have something to say about other carnivorous plants than just the venus flytrap but the flytrap really cathces the highlight in their videos.
Monthly carnivorous plant care by SarraceniaNorthwest. This is so far the best account for overview videos. They show things around their nursery, talk about care for carnivorous plants and show their own plants. new video comes out monthly but many of the old ones have been deleted somewhy. :(
Sundewman's videos. They're absolutely amazing, cool and lovely. I love the way he describes each of the species and hybrids separately and tells his own observations. You should watch these if you're a sundew lover.
Few days ago I changed the top pic of this blog to a bit more personal and to fit better on the blogs subject. Hope you like the pitcher of my Cephalotus follicularis.
I will take pictures of my plants during this week and update my blog again later.
It is really amazing to think that I've been writing this blog for almost a year and I'm happy to see that my blog has over 1600 pageviews and traffic from 43 countries. Hope you have enjoyed reading this blog and would like to see more posts in future too.
During the time I couldn't update my blog I got few new seeds and even tried growing some pygmy sundews from gemmae. Seeds of D. burmannii from Humpty Doo, Australia and gemmae of D. omissa x pulchella, thanks to Dieter!
Happy Christmas time!
Saturday, October 01, 2011
Plants away from frost, trying to make a new hybrid
Today I took my plants away from outside. I'm trying to keep them alive indoors till in November I will put them in refridgerator for winter dormancy. In this year I will have more temperate plants than ever. 4 Sarracenia pitcher plants, 2 venus flytraps and 2 species of temperate sundews.
Few weeks ago I tried crossing D. spatulata 'Bloody Red' and D. intermedia from Gran Sabana, Venezuela. Will let you hear about the results as soon as possible.
Plants receved from Veek are already recovering from delivery thanks to fastness of delivery, from Belgium to Finland in 3 days! D. graomogolensis is opening 4 new leaves, which 1 has dewdrops. Some dew drops have already returned to D. petiolaris and I will hope that both of them will groww succesfully in my current conditions.
Plants received from Tobias Kulig are slowly recovering. Due to non-registered postage the packet was on its way for 2 weeks. D. felix was okay and is slowly showing some new growth but D. graminifolia's leaves were all rotten and now I will hope if new plantlets would sprout from the roots. So always remember to get packet registered if the contents of the packet are valuable! Despite the bad luck with my plants I will order more plants from Tobias in near future. Tobias is a trustworthy seller and only sells quality plants and seeds. I recommend you to buy plants from him. Just remember to have the packet registered.
My terraria is now clean too. I was shocked how moldy my terraria was. Now I know the reason why my seedslings mold so often. Guess I just have to make new terraria during winter. From now on, I will never use any organic material in my plants terraria. It is so long wood-glass terraria and welcome full glass terraria, as soon as I just get the material.
Few weeks ago I tried crossing D. spatulata 'Bloody Red' and D. intermedia from Gran Sabana, Venezuela. Will let you hear about the results as soon as possible.
Plants receved from Veek are already recovering from delivery thanks to fastness of delivery, from Belgium to Finland in 3 days! D. graomogolensis is opening 4 new leaves, which 1 has dewdrops. Some dew drops have already returned to D. petiolaris and I will hope that both of them will groww succesfully in my current conditions.
Plants received from Tobias Kulig are slowly recovering. Due to non-registered postage the packet was on its way for 2 weeks. D. felix was okay and is slowly showing some new growth but D. graminifolia's leaves were all rotten and now I will hope if new plantlets would sprout from the roots. So always remember to get packet registered if the contents of the packet are valuable! Despite the bad luck with my plants I will order more plants from Tobias in near future. Tobias is a trustworthy seller and only sells quality plants and seeds. I recommend you to buy plants from him. Just remember to have the packet registered.
My terraria is now clean too. I was shocked how moldy my terraria was. Now I know the reason why my seedslings mold so often. Guess I just have to make new terraria during winter. From now on, I will never use any organic material in my plants terraria. It is so long wood-glass terraria and welcome full glass terraria, as soon as I just get the material.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Growth, growth and don't forget, even more growth!
Hi everybody. It's doing great here in Finland. Weather is all sunny but lately we've had few thunderstorms but luckily nothing got broken during storms.
All of my plants (excluding few exceptions) are on the top of the growth. All of my Phalaenopsis orchids are making new leaves at the same time and it looks like my first Phalaenopsis is going to make branch to the old flowerstalk or maybe a keiki?
Ludisia discolor is making branches to few main plants. I've seperated few of these branches from the mother plant and maybe soon I can have even more Ludisia plants growing.
Only orchid which doesn't seem to be doing anythin is my Miltoniopsis hybrid. Positive thing with this plant is that it's making few smalle plantlets by the two main plants. Could that be sign of heat stress? Hopefully this orchid will flower in autumn due to cooler temperatures.
And after orchids some carnivorous plant news.
All the cuttings of D. 'Marston Dragon' that I received died. Next time I wont take cuttings but few growing plants. Better luck next time.
Few newcommers are also recovering from shipping. Newcommers such as Cephalotus follicularis.
And both of my cephs side by side.
Nepenthes ampullaria 'Brunei Red x Harlequin' is forming a new pitcher
Nepenthes albomarginata
Genlisea violacea from Grão Mogol
Utricularia alpina
Also one of my two VFTs is getting some red colourration.
And last some flower power.
Pinguicula emarginata
+ Drosera capensis 'Alba'
Enjoy the summer!
All of my plants (excluding few exceptions) are on the top of the growth. All of my Phalaenopsis orchids are making new leaves at the same time and it looks like my first Phalaenopsis is going to make branch to the old flowerstalk or maybe a keiki?
Ludisia discolor is making branches to few main plants. I've seperated few of these branches from the mother plant and maybe soon I can have even more Ludisia plants growing.
Only orchid which doesn't seem to be doing anythin is my Miltoniopsis hybrid. Positive thing with this plant is that it's making few smalle plantlets by the two main plants. Could that be sign of heat stress? Hopefully this orchid will flower in autumn due to cooler temperatures.
And after orchids some carnivorous plant news.
All the cuttings of D. 'Marston Dragon' that I received died. Next time I wont take cuttings but few growing plants. Better luck next time.
Few newcommers are also recovering from shipping. Newcommers such as Cephalotus follicularis.
And both of my cephs side by side.
Nepenthes ampullaria 'Brunei Red x Harlequin' is forming a new pitcher
Nepenthes albomarginata
Genlisea violacea from Grão Mogol
Utricularia alpina
Also one of my two VFTs is getting some red colourration.
And last some flower power.
Pinguicula emarginata
+ Drosera capensis 'Alba'
Enjoy the summer!
Monday, June 27, 2011
Chili flower and memories from the past
Aji Cristal is flowering. Almost one year old plant.
And at least 2 big buds. If it starts making fruits I think I need to support it.
Utricularia calycifida from Gran Sabana making leaf tip plantlet.
After updates for my current plants some pictures from the past
Sarracenia purpurea †
Molded badly in 2009.
Sarracenia x 'Mitcheliana' †
Dried during dormancy in 2009.
My better VFT in 2010
My worse flytrap when I bought it in 2010
Same plant in the end of 2010
My Sarracenia psittacina in 2010. Just love the colour. Someone from Finnish carnivorous plants forum said when I posted this picture that "This plant is so going to flower in spring if it survives through dormancy." Well it survived and flowered. Now just waiting for seeds.
Happy growing. :D
And at least 2 big buds. If it starts making fruits I think I need to support it.
Utricularia calycifida from Gran Sabana making leaf tip plantlet.
After updates for my current plants some pictures from the past
Sarracenia purpurea †
Molded badly in 2009.
Sarracenia x 'Mitcheliana' †
Dried during dormancy in 2009.
My better VFT in 2010
My worse flytrap when I bought it in 2010
Same plant in the end of 2010
My Sarracenia psittacina in 2010. Just love the colour. Someone from Finnish carnivorous plants forum said when I posted this picture that "This plant is so going to flower in spring if it survives through dormancy." Well it survived and flowered. Now just waiting for seeds.
Happy growing. :D
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