NeciFiX
Kung Fu Fighting!
I got this plant for free from my trip to endo-doc's house yesterday, he said "if they die, they die, don't worry about it".
But I won't let them die without a FIGHT!
D. falconeri is a really cool plant, I was going to bid for it in the NASC auction (and lose other plants I wanted
) but I got it from endo-doc, CPers are always nice and generous people .
Now, here's what I understand about this plant.
It's Carnivorous (duh)
It's a Sundew (duh)
It's in the petiolaris complex (duh?)
It thrives in hot and humid conditions
Now, a not so sunny (only a few hours of sunlight) windowsill may be fine for some Nepenthes since it covers them completely as opposed to it being only diffused in the Jungle so this makes up for that, but, I don't know about D. falconeri, it's not even hot and humid in the windowsill, only when someone takes a shower, and if I was in their position I would die personally rather than see my cultivators family members go in and out of the shower every day.
So, today I was trying to think of a new, cheap, and probably stupid as characteristic of me way to easily take care of it without having to bust my behind. Endo-doc gave me this plant as you remember, and he gave me a tray to take all of them home in since he gave me quite a few, this tray is wide, and a bit deeper than most of the pots he gave me, at the very least the D. falconeri pot. Now, I saw it and it had two drainage holes, so I plugged them with LSM. I then dumped a little distilled water in to test if it would seep out. It didn't, huzzah huzzah. So I filled it about halfway and put the following in...
2x pots of P. primuliflora
2x D. graminifolia
1x D. spatulata pot
1x D. adelae pot (this comes into play later on)
The P. primuliflora don't really need special treatment, I know D. graminifolia is easy to grow (but otherwise have not read into their requirements extra-specifically, all I know is overnight it gained quite a bit of dew, one of the plants at least, I accidentally made a third D. graminifolia today as I was moving it into the tray because I broke the rhizome in half in between the growth points accidentally) and D. spatulata, while a tropical, does pretty well in most conditions. The D. adelae is actually maybe a 2 day experiment with this because it likes the conditions of D. falconeri (little less heat though, and probably differences in lighting, all the insane tentacles of the D. graminifolia creates shade spots on the plant though)
Here is my hypothesis on how this could work for the D. falconeri... you see as the hot blazing sun hits the water it evaporates (duh) and humidity would build up and go upwards into the air past the plants, and even more because the D. falconeri is in soil (mostly rocky but...) and since it is a low lying plant as it evaporated from that it would go around the plant (if not I can always take a few pinches of sphagnum so then something would evaporate from haha), this would create ample humidity. Now, from about 7:00 PM to 11:30 AM the next day it is very humid, going from like 65% to 90%+ in a short time. So, a good considerable portion of the day is very humid, but not hot AND humid. This method would create humidity for the plant (before somebody comes and says humidity is not important, well, for these guys it is, usually it is overrated and not that important for a lot of CPs, for these guys it is), my climate is naturally hot this time of year, and they would get lots and lots of direct sunshine.
Thats the controversial part.
The D. falconeri was in a bright lowland greenhouse, it was it's ruby red color and looked great, however, can D. falconeri survive the blazing sun for many hours of the day? It's only bad until after noon though. They're in a spot where they would receive more noon sunshine since the tray is a bit tall, but, even though this is some slight protection it still would get a lot of direct hard sun (some more protection, more slight, would be to move it to the bottom right corner, that would be more protection from the evening sun).
Can they handle these conditions? What if I were to move it to the corner as I just said which would be some protection against the hot sun?
I may sound like an idiot, but, trust me, it would give good humidity at least, and if it can stand the sunshine or I can protect it adequately, it should do okay. East-central Wisconsin and Northern Australia don't have to be that different,
.
I was worried about the soil being flooded since I don't think they like waterlogged conditions, only moist to damp. But, the media is all rocks from what I can see, so it should be okay, if not I can plug the drainage holes and just lightly water it every other day or every day if it's a particularly bad day.
If they can handle hot sun, theoretically, this should work, if they can't handle it well I can move it to the corner where it would be mostly protected from the hot afternoon sun and only get morning and noon and a bit of afternoon sun.
This is only a temporary method I came up with to take care of this plant until I can get a small terrarium. I'm not going to start hording water trays and grow D. falconeri in the corners of it and all of that all the time, theoretically, it should do fine here until I get something a lot better.
Someone on these very forums took South-eastern USA CP's and put them in a Canadian bog garden he made and only protected them with a white tarp like thing and a bit of leaves, and most survived the winter.
Someone (I think it was Jeremiah Harris or something but I'm not sure) can grow a N. rajah on a windowsill.
Why can't I grow a North Australian Tropical Petiolaris Drosera falconeri in the corner of a tall plastic tray with various methods to give it a adequate humidity during the day (because that's all its needed, its usually like a 50:50 thing with Wisconsin, it's really humid and hot one day and then humid that night and next morning then it's bone dry, then its humid that night and morning then it's humid all day, humid all night and morning then bone dry again) in a humid continental climate without spending a lot of money?
Surely this is much better than an only occasionally humid and hot bathroom with only a bit of morning light!
I expect a lot of disliking to my idea, but come on! Work with me here!
What are your thoughts on my crazy idea?
Thanks a bunch in advance!
~Sam.
But I won't let them die without a FIGHT!
D. falconeri is a really cool plant, I was going to bid for it in the NASC auction (and lose other plants I wanted
) but I got it from endo-doc, CPers are always nice and generous people .Now, here's what I understand about this plant.
It's Carnivorous (duh)
It's a Sundew (duh)
It's in the petiolaris complex (duh?)
It thrives in hot and humid conditions
Now, a not so sunny (only a few hours of sunlight) windowsill may be fine for some Nepenthes since it covers them completely as opposed to it being only diffused in the Jungle so this makes up for that, but, I don't know about D. falconeri, it's not even hot and humid in the windowsill, only when someone takes a shower, and if I was in their position I would die personally rather than see my cultivators family members go in and out of the shower every day.
So, today I was trying to think of a new, cheap, and probably stupid as characteristic of me way to easily take care of it without having to bust my behind. Endo-doc gave me this plant as you remember, and he gave me a tray to take all of them home in since he gave me quite a few, this tray is wide, and a bit deeper than most of the pots he gave me, at the very least the D. falconeri pot. Now, I saw it and it had two drainage holes, so I plugged them with LSM. I then dumped a little distilled water in to test if it would seep out. It didn't, huzzah huzzah. So I filled it about halfway and put the following in...
2x pots of P. primuliflora
2x D. graminifolia
1x D. spatulata pot
1x D. adelae pot (this comes into play later on)
The P. primuliflora don't really need special treatment, I know D. graminifolia is easy to grow (but otherwise have not read into their requirements extra-specifically, all I know is overnight it gained quite a bit of dew, one of the plants at least, I accidentally made a third D. graminifolia today as I was moving it into the tray because I broke the rhizome in half in between the growth points accidentally) and D. spatulata, while a tropical, does pretty well in most conditions. The D. adelae is actually maybe a 2 day experiment with this because it likes the conditions of D. falconeri (little less heat though, and probably differences in lighting, all the insane tentacles of the D. graminifolia creates shade spots on the plant though)
Here is my hypothesis on how this could work for the D. falconeri... you see as the hot blazing sun hits the water it evaporates (duh) and humidity would build up and go upwards into the air past the plants, and even more because the D. falconeri is in soil (mostly rocky but...) and since it is a low lying plant as it evaporated from that it would go around the plant (if not I can always take a few pinches of sphagnum so then something would evaporate from haha), this would create ample humidity. Now, from about 7:00 PM to 11:30 AM the next day it is very humid, going from like 65% to 90%+ in a short time. So, a good considerable portion of the day is very humid, but not hot AND humid. This method would create humidity for the plant (before somebody comes and says humidity is not important, well, for these guys it is, usually it is overrated and not that important for a lot of CPs, for these guys it is), my climate is naturally hot this time of year, and they would get lots and lots of direct sunshine.
Thats the controversial part.
The D. falconeri was in a bright lowland greenhouse, it was it's ruby red color and looked great, however, can D. falconeri survive the blazing sun for many hours of the day? It's only bad until after noon though. They're in a spot where they would receive more noon sunshine since the tray is a bit tall, but, even though this is some slight protection it still would get a lot of direct hard sun (some more protection, more slight, would be to move it to the bottom right corner, that would be more protection from the evening sun).
Can they handle these conditions? What if I were to move it to the corner as I just said which would be some protection against the hot sun?
I may sound like an idiot, but, trust me, it would give good humidity at least, and if it can stand the sunshine or I can protect it adequately, it should do okay. East-central Wisconsin and Northern Australia don't have to be that different,
.I was worried about the soil being flooded since I don't think they like waterlogged conditions, only moist to damp. But, the media is all rocks from what I can see, so it should be okay, if not I can plug the drainage holes and just lightly water it every other day or every day if it's a particularly bad day.
If they can handle hot sun, theoretically, this should work, if they can't handle it well I can move it to the corner where it would be mostly protected from the hot afternoon sun and only get morning and noon and a bit of afternoon sun.
This is only a temporary method I came up with to take care of this plant until I can get a small terrarium. I'm not going to start hording water trays and grow D. falconeri in the corners of it and all of that all the time, theoretically, it should do fine here until I get something a lot better.
Someone on these very forums took South-eastern USA CP's and put them in a Canadian bog garden he made and only protected them with a white tarp like thing and a bit of leaves, and most survived the winter.
Someone (I think it was Jeremiah Harris or something but I'm not sure) can grow a N. rajah on a windowsill.
Why can't I grow a North Australian Tropical Petiolaris Drosera falconeri in the corner of a tall plastic tray with various methods to give it a adequate humidity during the day (because that's all its needed, its usually like a 50:50 thing with Wisconsin, it's really humid and hot one day and then humid that night and next morning then it's bone dry, then its humid that night and morning then it's humid all day, humid all night and morning then bone dry again) in a humid continental climate without spending a lot of money?
Surely this is much better than an only occasionally humid and hot bathroom with only a bit of morning light!
I expect a lot of disliking to my idea, but come on! Work with me here!
What are your thoughts on my crazy idea?
Thanks a bunch in advance!
~Sam
.
