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!

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!

Spring coming and preparing the plants for sunny conditions

It's wonderful to see snow melting here in Finland. And lovely sound of running water. In this week I repotted my whole sundew collection, just to make more space for new plants I'm going to buy. Before repotting my Drosera collection took about 884 square centimeters and after repotting only 690 square centimeters.

If only weather was warmer I could go and order some plants that I have wanted for so long. Some wonderful species such as Queensland sundews D. adelae and D. prolifera and N. ampullaria just gotta love those basal rosettes. And above all the other plants lovely and small and hopefully easy enough for me Cephalotus follicularis. C. follicularis is so interesting plant becaus it is totally unique.

In summer I'm also going to make a new terraria or maybe two. One for Drosera and another for Nepenthes, Utricularia and Genlisea. My current terraria is kinda crappy because humidity is not as high as it should be. This or there new terraria are going to be made out of either glass or plastic sheets with air cells in it. I've seen lots of greenhouses with cell plastic used in them and it would be interesting to try them to make a terraria.

And now I'm going to preform a test in summer about Nepenthes fertilizing. I'm aware that some growers fertilize their plants without losses. At the same time I'm interested in this and scared about loosing some of my plants. Thats why in summer I' going to take two N. x 'Ventrata' pitcher plants. One of them recieves fertilization(this includes mild orchid fertilizing and some seaweed solution) and another has to cope with just water and bugs.