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petiolaris complex

what exactly are those who are having success doing. i had paradoxa for awhile before my plant stand colapsed it was doing wonderfully in what i considered intermidiate/highland conditions for my neps. warm(but not hot days) and cool nights it did great in an open tray. plantstand collpsed, the paradox was uninjured, the only spot i had availible for it was in an open toped 10 gal tank where it was moved to within a half hour of the collapse. temps light and water level stayed the same and it keeled over in about 2 weeks.

been reading over posts from the last 6 or 8 months. lots of cool pics of the complex, lots of talk about soils but lil mention of humidity and temps other than using a "hot tank"

on the topic of soils Tamlin brought up the fact that when these go dormant you need to get the soil to dry fast. my thought is a tall terra cotta pot with a loose mix. any houghts? ive used terra cotta with success with other CPs, yah just gotta use brand new pots and strictly RO water and ive never had an issue with salt build up. infact i can get some Utrics to grow on the outsides of these pots
 
Hello,

One of my D. ordensis went dormant twice now during the past 2 years. My D. falconeri has been coming out of dormancy just recently. I have several clones of D. paradoxa, and none of them every displayed any sort of dormancy charateristics. They (paradoxa) are the easiest Petiolaris Complex Drosera to grow. Soil mixture doesn't need to be too specific, as regular Drosera mix (50/50 peatmoss perlite, equal parts sand and peatmoss) serves them well. I wouldn't worry about your next D. paradoxa going dormant. The key is to keep them hot. Lowland conditions with "standard" room humidity should be just fine.

Gotta run!

-Homer
 
I'm pretty much echo Homer om D. paradoxa, but this plant is as indestructible (barring physical catastrophe) as a D. binata. I started mine from seed in late summer of 2004 and moved it to the lab in late fall. It resided on a SW window sill for a full year and never died back. I mixed sand and peat and topdressed with dried LFS, which eventually became alive LFS. I kept it soggy. It flowers, like a U. livida. Did well with temps in the 50's to 90's for me. Likes a lot of light.

I just receieved a D. petiolaris-dilatato and it is in sand and peat - what it came in. Can't say too much about it, since it is new and only now sending up healthy leaves / traps. I hope that in time it will be as red as the paradoxa I've been posting.

By dormancy, it was never said directly, but are we talking about a typical Australian hot, dry summer dormancy - the kind that pigmy and tuberous sundews are supposed to experience?
 
thanks Homer and Jim, BTW Jim if your still interested in those Utrics im interested in one or two of your paradoxa

ill just plan on setting up a seperate tank for these guys as it sounds like im getting ahold of several other than paradoxa. can probably have them share a heat mat with one of my snake tanks
smile_n_32.gif
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]By dormancy, it was never said directly, but are we talking about a typical Australian hot, dry summer dormancy - the kind that pigmy and tuberous sundews are supposed to experience?

Yes, there is a definate wet and dry season. Year around temps remain very hot. These Drosera grow close to water, and from what I read each Petiolaris Drosera species prefer a particular soil mixture, that insulates the roots from dessicating. It's been on my mind to talk with the geologists at work to see if I can mimic these soil mixtures... Allen Lowrie's Carnivorous Plants of Australia Vol. 3 has wonderful information and photo's of these plants in the wild.

My D. falconeri and ordensis, that I mentioned earlier, went through a "dormancy", but I waterered them occasionally, and wasn't too hard on them. I use an adjustable photoperiod, so that probably triggered it. If you use a long daylight photoperiod you probably don't have to mess with dormancy.

-Homer
 
I have been using strictly window sill sunlight as my photoperiod trigger. I don't have artificial light at all (yet). How would I treat the dilatato-petiolaris in terms of water table, watering, media, and dormancy? When should I attempt to dry it out? I have at a west window sill in my attic, which fluctuates according to sun, clouds, day/night, and temps and can get get in the 90's during the summer. I'm thinking that 95 degrees should faze this kind of plant, as it didn't faze the paradoxa or adelae or any of the pigmy sundews...
 
My only D. dilatato-petiolaris (my avatar) is 1 year old that I grew from seed. So far, it hasn't displayed any dormancy characteristics. I've been keeping it in a humid environment. Grows in 60/40 peatmoss and perlite. I water it like a Nepenthes... topwatering every other day or so. It doens't stand in water, as any water in the growing chamber evaporates and condenses on the lid.

-Homer
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (rattler_mt @ May 22 2006,12:44)]thanks Homer and Jim, BTW Jim if your still interested in those Utrics im interested in one or two of your paradoxa

ill just plan on setting up a seperate tank for these guys as it sounds like im getting ahold of several other than paradoxa. can probably have them share a heat mat with one of my snake tanks
smile_n_32.gif
Sure!
 
Well, dormancy does happen from time to time, although Drosera paradoxa wasn't one of the ones I grew that did. I have talked with other growers who did nothing special during the periods of dormancy, left it right in the tray water like all the other plants, and had it for years growing like this. He is in Arizona. Here under my conditions, the plant would quickly rot. I did not employ a heated terrarium, and this would be ideal I think for any petiolaris culture. I found my plants were not fussy regarding humidity, but liked high humidity just fine and grew quicker in humid conditions. The plants were not predictable in regards to their dormant periods! In habitat this would be during the summer, but my plants didn't know that. The initiation of the process was a reduction in the length of the petioles and size of the traps.

Like I said before, I grew only a few plants of each species, not enough experience to pass on any expert advise, only my observations. Any time a plant went dormant, if I didn't take it out of tray water, the plant would rot. When I did, and kept the watering to a minimum to maintain the compacted rosette, plants survived. I noted more problems with more mature plants vs juvenille examples in terms of both growth and dormancy.

I found Drosera dilatato-petiolaris to be not too difficult, but one that frequently had its dormant hissy fits. Don't know why: sometimes in summer, sometimes in winter. All my lighting followed a natural photoperiod.

Warmth and much light is the key for success with these plants. The comment regarding keeping the roots insulated sounds like very good advice, for the roots are needed to maintain the dormant "bulb", but if surface conditions are too wet and cold, the plant will rot. Seems a balance between moist roots and top dryness is what is needed, but it didn't work for me, although the top dressing of laterite did help I believe.

My end feelings after growing and killing a number of them are: loose light mix, bright light (direct sun better than indoor lights), hot, high humidity, miminal night time drop, moderate feeding, and some air circulation (D. broomensis can get very dense petioles it makes so many traps). No dormancy is "needed" and probably in my conditions was stress triggered.

I wish I had more of a chance to grow these species. For me, petiolaris seed was the hardest to come by of almost all Drosera species and notoriously hard to germinate for me. I had some luck with fresh seed, and the best germination with D. paradoxa.
 
  • #10
My meager (but slowly growing experience) agrees with most of the comments posted.
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]...been reading over posts from the last 6 or 8 months. lots of cool pics of the complex, lots of talk about soils but lil mention of humidity and temps other than using a "hot tank"
Don't know the 'exact' range for humidity (don't have a meter) but the plants tend to like higher humidity and some species definitely do not like low humidity. It took me a while to realize that my plants slow/no-growth during winter was caused by lower humidity even though the tanks were mostly closed (1-4" openings). Some people grow w/ closed tanks (I've had problems w/ closed tanks though - so mine get some fresh air). Daytime temps in my tanks range from 85 to 107 (my rough target range is 93-103*F).
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]...can probably have them share a heat mat with one of my snake tanks
smile_n_32.gif
After experimenting w/ a bunch of setups, I like the under-tank herp heat tape. I hook it up to a standard light dimmer and have variable heat ranging from zero add'l to 120*F (got the idea from an aquarium forum).
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]...on the topic of soils Tamlin brought up the fact that when these go dormant you need to get the soil to dry fast. my thought is a tall terra cotta pot with a loose mix. any houghts?
Just be careful here. If you have the pots sit in water like many people (not me), this is probably ok but if you have temps around 100*F and a loose mix not sitting in water - that pot may dry out too fast... I experimented a while back with how long I could go w/o watering and once I got to that point, the plant in the driest pot just shut down. Every trap on every arm shriveled up in a matter of hours. While the plant resumed new growth when I gave it some water again, none of those dried-out arms came back....
896.gif
. (I don't do that experiment any more...)
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Growing these guys can have it's challenging moments but the sometimes predictable and sometimes not predictable, sometimes slowly evolving and sometimes sudden onset of dormancy seems to be a big learning curve with these guys that mystifies almost everyone. I've got a D. broomensis that is shrinking the length of it's new arms daily next to D. ordensis expanding each day (& a D. broomensis expanding too). Some of the plants just shrink the length of the arms and others let the traps dry up and imitate a dying plant (check out 2nd plant in this post) . I knew this plant was dead and then one day it started to grow again..... go figure! A few months ago, I had my largest D. ordensis dry up it's traps and shrink down and it was dead and rotting in a week...

I've never experienced such a dynamic & diverse group of plants - pretty amazing actually. Good luck with your new journey & be sure to share your learnings....
 
  • #11
thanks for the input Ron, ive got a lil falconeri sitting next to me as i type. it will be potted up and placed in my hot tank tonight. hope to get ahold of a broomensis before this fall
 
  • #12
Good info, thanks everyone.
I have a paradoxa in a sand/peat mix that it came in that has stopped putting out new arms at all, the older ones are shrivling up. The plant has not done much since shipping.
Dormancy?
Do I need to dry it out quickly? It has high humidity, day temps to 90F and nights down to 74F. The petiolaris complex shipped with this plant have been doing well.
 
  • #13
[b said:
Quote[/b] (CP30 @ May 26 2006,11:56)]Good info, thanks everyone.
I have a paradoxa in a sand/peat mix that it came in that has stopped putting out new arms at all, the older ones are shrivling up. The plant has not done much since shipping.
I would repot. D. paradoxa doesn't seem to be as finicky w/ dormancy as some of the others. When I see these symptoms in a D. paradoxa, if I do nothing, the plant typically dies...
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on 11/3/03 Tamlin wrote:
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]They seem to be very responsive plants, and they communicate what they do and do not like fairly evidently and quickly unlike some other plants which one moment are great looking and the next withered memories (Heliamphora come to mind here
smile_h_32.gif
)
My limited experience has totally agreed w/ this statement. Unlike some other groups of plants, this complex tries very hard to tell us whether they are happy or need something. In general, we stink in our ability to understand what they're saying but they do try to tell us....
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  • #14
My own experience of a few of the cmplex is simply one of light, light, light. I grow a few inches beneath a 125W Envorlite (which is an energy-saving bulb and very bright conmpared to normal fluorescents). They get a little airm movement with a fan, and in an enclosed tank - so quite humid.
 
  • #15
I am growing only 2 species, D. petiolaris and D. paradoxa at my balcony. Some pots are on the shelf under FL while others are at the windy parapet.

Humidity: 60-90%
Temperature: 80-90F
Light: Florescent lights or bright shade with some direct sunlight
Mix: LFS/perlite
Water: Onto the tray but pot does not stand in water, topping up only when the tray is dry

The D. petiolaris clumps so often that I end up taking the bunch apart and giving individual plants away. The roots are massive and the larger the pot, the more plants you'll end up with. I noticed certain times when the tentacles do kind of dry up suddenly but the plants come back rather quickly with newer and dewy leaves. No sure if that is some form of dormancy.

The three D. paradoxa plants I have were fresh from tissue culture. They established and grew very quickly. I repotted one plant into another pot recently. I was careful to keep most of the roots. The tentacles of older leaves dried up but all the leaves are firm and upright.

I noticed very thin and long roots with both species . And they quickly fill the entire pot which made separation into smaller clumps rather difficult. Maybe because humidity is high for me, I have not experienced drying out of the media even though the mix is very loose and the pots do not stand in water.
 
  • #16
Thank you cindy for sharing! My petiolaris-dilatato is a new addition, so I can't speak from experience. The paradoxa plants were started from seeds almost 2 years ago. I have mainly kept them on a SW window sill and waterlogged. Maybe they're just an easy species.

AR000102.jpg
 
  • #17
Just an addendum here on the "drying out" issue. Both with the petiolaris plants and other Drosera species like the winter growing South African and Australian tuberous species, drying out often means just barely moist: not enough to support live sphagnum growth, but not dust dry either. Petiolaris plants do have loooong roots but they are not succulent as are many of the South African species. The S. Af. droserae (and the tuberous Aussie's) have water reserves in their roots that get them through the hot months, but the petiolaris complex plants maintain themselves by an above ground bulb that is formed as the petioles reduce in length (a process very reminiscent of the pygmy sundews when they are getting ready to form gemmae). If that "bulb" is lost to dessication, the plant will wither and rot. If the roots are allowed to remain overly wet, they will rot and the plant will follow.

So when I say "dry out quickly" I don't mean totally dry, and I don't mean overnight, but you must be attentive (in my area at least) to the difference between active expanding growth vs the static or reducing length of the petioles and act accordingly.

If the plant is a "bulb" and feels firmish when touched, there is hope it will return from dormancy (if you didn't rot the roots). Never give up hope, I have had the most unexpected returns from death!

Yes Rob, light is the magic key: these plants want more than cacti even! Here in dreary old Oswego we get 40% available sun....outdoors in summer in terraria the plants grew like our National Deficit. It's hard to mimic conditions in the NT, where even the quality of the sun is different, but it can be done. Indoors the plants loved a combo metal halide/HPS 1000 watt diet, and were not typical and happy under fluorescents - not even 8 of them.

I rarely fed my plants, and they took what they needed outdoors.

I wish I had thought about the light dimmer for a heating pad....brilliant!
 
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