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Hi,

I had a Sarracenia and a Nepenthes and recently added some Utricularia, Pinguicula and a Drosera. Also a friend sent me a Dionea which I am not very adept on growing..Let's hope it will do ok!!!

I was thinking of putting drosera, pinguicula, dionea and utricularia in a small tank I have. Do you think it would be good to have them all in a mix on the bottom of the tank or put them in pots seperately? Any ideas? TY

I have done this in the past and planted each of them without pots. The only reason I could think of leaving them in a pot is if the plant needs dormancy. That way once fall arrives, they can be taken out cleanly.
 
Also, do any of you guys who are blooming your CP's pollinate the flowers? I would love to try my hand at starting some pitcher seedlings. I already have some Darlingtonia californica seeds started, and I would be willing to trade seed for seed, or seedlings for seed.

My purpurea selfed last year, and I have thousands of purp seedlings. Overwintered them in a moist paper towel in the fridge, sowed them in late Feb. and the germination rate was incredible. I've never made an intentional Sarracenia cross though, not sure how to keep native pollinators out of them. I should have more Sarracenia seeds in the fall, they take all year to mature. I also grow out my Drosera dielsiana seedlings (this species readily selfs), it's so easy to grow this species from seed. I've tried to cross some pygmy sundews, got some seed but never sowed it. I've got some Drosera roseana gemmae and purpurea seedlings right now if anyone wants to start a swap. I really want to get more varieties of S. flava, it is such a nice species.
 
Hi,

I had a Sarracenia and a Nepenthes and recently added some Utricularia, Pinguicula and a Drosera. Also a friend sent me a Dionea which I am not very adept on growing..Let's hope it will do ok!!!

I was thinking of putting drosera, pinguicula, dionea and utricularia in a small tank I have. Do you think it would be good to have them all in a mix on the bottom of the tank or put them in pots seperately? Any ideas? TY

as eOrchids said dormancy is the key here. VFTs will slowly die if not let to go dormant in the winter months. As for the others it would depend on the species, tropical and some sudtropical cp's without any seasonal dormant periods are best for terrariums, the ones that need a rest should be grown in a pot so you can remove them for winter rest, or outdoors where they will get it naturally. There's a great section of setting up a successful terrarium in Peter's book.
 
Thank you both for your replies!!! You are right!! I will keep them in pots...!!! :)
 
Does anyone have any of the Stewart McPherson books from Redfern Conservation? They look amazing, but they are pretty pricey and you have to order them from the U.K. so shipping is a bit much.

I have Pitcher Plants of the Americas, which is an excellent book that is well worth the money. It's well written, has great photos and the layout is simple and easy to flip through. Detailed descriptions of form, range, habitat etc of all of the species including varieties, forms and major undescribed variants. I've seen several of his other books and they are also very good (just not focused on the plants I'm most interested in so I haven't bought them).
 
I grow Sarracenia, Darlingtonia, Dionaea, Drosera, and dribs and drabs of Pinguicula, Nepenthes, Cephalotus and Utricularia. I used to have a reasonably diverse collection of carnivorous plants but I've been downsizing a lot of it to focus on Nth American pitcher species, flytraps and tuberous Drosera. I probably have too many to remember my grow list.

I don't routinely take photo's of my plants and it's a really bad time of year to take pictures of them at the moment so I'm bit scant on photos I can post. The only photo I have on hand is a pic of my Sarra oreophila (below) from a couple of years ago. There's also photos of my Drosera regia and Dionaea muscipula 'Big Mouth' on my local carnivorous plant society's website from last year's show:
http://www.vcps.au.com/EsowwpicO/2010/D_regia.JPG
http://www.vcps.au.com/EsowwpicO/2010/Dionea_muscipula_clump.JPG
(sourced from VCPS website: http://www.vcps.au.com/annualshow2010.html)


Sarracenia oreophila

oreo-1.jpg
 
That is a nice looking oreo... That's what is missing from my collection. I have too many plants right now to list, but I am doing them a diservice as I can not give them quite the light they need (heavily wooded lot).. I have most species of sarracenias and a bunch of local hybrids.... Larry Mellenchamp is local as is a guy named Dave Crump who did some hybridizing... I had them in large purple bins planted like a bed, this spring I took them out and put them in individual pots so they are easily movable. We are hoping to sell our house and will need to be transported....
 
Andrew that is a stunning plant. I really need to make my bog bigger so I can incorporate a few more species. I've always wanted an oreo., more varieties of flava, and some minors. Maybe I should get rid of my hybrids to make room for a few new species.
 
That is a nice looking oreo... That's what is missing from my collection.

It's a shame that the restrictions on the trade of this species across US state borders has limited the availability of oreos in private collections. I find it to be one of the easiest and most vigorous Sarra species.
 
Cold stratifying Darlingtonia seeds is not very exciting. Waiting six weeks is hard. As soon as the rest of my seed starting supplies arrive, I am going to be planting some Dionaea seedlings for the first time. Wish me luck.
 
When I lived in South Carolina, I had all sorts of wild-collected sarracenias, and have grown some nepenthes, but right now I'm down to a single drosera cluster in a terrarium also occupied by a variety of jewel orchids, a bulbo species, a tiny variegated vanilla, Polystachya paniculata (I think is starting to spike), and a NOID phal hybrid.

The sundew flowers a great deal, and at least one seed germinated, giving me a teeny tiny new plant.
 
I'm doing it! Started tearing apart the old waterlily pond converting to a bog, almost all the muck is out! Next step is to downsize/change the shape so I can reach plants in the middle.
 
Heather - Yes I plan on it. Things will be slow this week, today is my only day off.
Question - How is one measuring the 50/50 sand/peat ratio, by weight or volume? or is it not that critical?
Talk about timing - my husband is getting into this, went to price gutters at Menard's, found play sand on sale (ends today) $1.49, regular price $3.59. He got 60 bags & reserved another 20! :eek: it looks like way too much, it won't be long before we find out!
 
Heather - Yes I plan on it. Things will be slow this week, today is my only day off.
Question - How is one measuring the 50/50 sand/peat ratio, by weight or volume? or is it not that critical?
Talk about timing - my husband is getting into this, went to price gutters at Menard's, found play sand on sale (ends today) $1.49, regular price $3.59. He got 60 bags & reserved another 20! :eek: it looks like way too much, it won't be long before we find out!

I measure by volume, but it's not that critical. One thing to remember, is that you would want silica sand, rather than play sand, as, even if it is washed, you can still have a high volume of minerals in the sand, which is bad for the plants. If you use play sand, you might want to wash it before you use it, just to be sure. Just a heads up. http://www.sarracenia.com/faq/faq3280.html
 
Heather - Yes I plan on it. Things will be slow this week, today is my only day off.
Question - How is one measuring the 50/50 sand/peat ratio, by weight or volume? or is it not that critical?
Talk about timing - my husband is getting into this, went to price gutters at Menard's, found play sand on sale (ends today) $1.49, regular price $3.59. He got 60 bags & reserved another 20! :eek: it looks like way too much, it won't be long before we find out!

I measure by volume, but it's not that critical. One thing to remember, is that you would want silica sand, rather than play sand, as, even if it is washed, you can still have a high volume of minerals in the sand, which is bad for the plants. If you use play sand, you might want to wash it before you use it, just to be sure. Just a heads up. http://www.sarracenia.com/faq/faq3280.html

If the sand you bought has a warning on the bag about inhaling silica dust, it's silica sand. I worry about these guys who mix their own silica sand/peat mix. Do they wear masks while mixing? I suspect many of them don't. Make sure you wet it down to keep the dust at bay, and wear a respirator if at all possible.

As for playground sand, I would suspect it does not have a high content of silica sand. However, I was reading a carnivorous plant forum discussion on sand the other day, and someone said that Peter D'Amato has used playground sand with no ill effects.

Does the bag say anything about mineral content Rose? You want to avoid anything with limestone sand in it.
 
Silica sand has no dust - at least I've never noticed any. Sponge rock, however, does have a lot of dust (you can use sponge rock or perlite in place of the sand). Actually, you don't even need to use either - straight peat works fine. If you can get live sphagnum moss, that works great on it's own too, except that you'll have to keep trimming it as it grows.
 
I think we've had the sand discussion before, but most sand (play sand, silica sand, builder sand, pool filter sand, etc) is predominantly silica in the form of quartz (SiO2). The biggest difference between play, builders, silica, pool filter... sand is grain size.

Exceptions to the composition are aragonite and crushed coral sands etc generally used in marine and African cichlid aquariums. These are mostly calcium carbonate. These may also have some degree of salts just due to their origin.
 

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