Jesse, what are you currently doing to allow extra growth in your temperate pings? Most of mine have already gone dormant, or are in the process of it, and all of them will probably have winter hibernacula in the next couple of weeks.
I am doing nothing special targeted to "allow extra growth", I am just a little bit "testing and observing". Testing a little variation in cultivation and observing what happens to the cultivated plants. So I can find out what are the best cultivation conditions for a given species.
With P. grandiflora I did this testing: Potted cultivation in a pot vs. planted cultivation in a mini-bog.
What did I use: P. grandiflora, grown from seed and kept all together until March 2011. Substrate
eat.
Potted cultivation: Free standing pot, half-shady, some more hours of sun as with the mini-bog plants since March 2011.
Planted cultivation: Mini-bog dug-in and ground-even, mostly shaded and very little sun since March 2011.
And this is my current observation of today:
The potted plants have already created their winter bulbs or are mostly finished with it while the mini-bog plants are green and growing without any sign of bulb creation.
Until three weeks ago there was no visible difference between the mini-bog and the potted plants (OK, perhaps the mini-bog plants were a bit darker green leaves), but all growing strong. Then the potted plants started to develop their winter bulbs and the mini-bog plants did not.
I'm wondering what may cause the difference. In my thinking I imagine P. grandiflora in it's summer leaves as clock that ticks. And the clock is ticking quicker when the plant get more sun and heat, it is ticking slower in the shade and cooler environment. And when the internal "Pinguicula clock time display" has reaced a certain time, the plant is forming its winter bulb.
BTW: For a comparison I did the same with P. macroceras ssp. nortensis at the same time. P. macroceras does NOT show the same results as P. grandiflora, but with P. macroceras ssp. nortensis the potted plants are in summer leaves as the mini-bog plants are also until today.
But I'm doing further observations on it.
JESSE you grow what grandiflora species the type ?
I have received the seeds as simply P. grandiflora.
So it should be P. grandiflora var. grandiflora, the typical ones.
Flowers look like:
Initially I was able to grow three plants from seed that I received from a grower, and after that those three were propagated by winter bulbs/gemmae only, so it should be three genetical different clones in my P. grandiflora stock. I imagine that I am able to distinguish my three clones by their flowers, in the picture above there are flowers of two of my P. grandiflora clones. I think the flowers look a little bit different, although they are grown from the same batch of seeds.
grandiflora subsp grandiflora (type)
grandiflora subsp rosea (pink)
grandiflora subsp grandiflora f pallida ( pale blue)
grandiflora subsp grandiflora var chionopetra( white)
and may be a new, actualy in study , grandiflora subsp grandiflora var asturiensis
all these one have not the same substrate .
Please tell me more about the preferred substrate, as I like to extend my hardy Ping collection if I can obtain seeds or gemmae. Currently I cultivate P. grandiflora in cheap pure peat. Although it was declared blonde peat I think it's more a mix of blonde and black peat, and P. grandiflora is doing well (P. macroceras also).
actually all my temperate species are in hibernaculae ( except 2-3 who do not) , most stays outdoor all year and yours ?
All my hardy Pinguicula are always outdoors for the whole year. So I can only cultivate the cold-temperate and hardy Pinguicula species and not the warm-temperate species from Southern USA.