<span style='font-size:11pt;line-height:100%'>A local nursery which specializes in desert plants, and also has a tropical greenhouse, including a few epiphytic and terrestrial orchids, had requested that I keep a few Mexican Pinguicula in their greenhouse to see how they perform. Initially I provided some plants in small plastic pots planted in 100% granulated peat moss. These pots were held in place atop the greenhouse benches by use of standard square black plastic mesh nursery flats. By the end of the first year most of the peat moss had either been washed away by heavy frequent watering with very hard tap water or had simply rotted away. These Pinguicula did not mind being without media, they multiplied prodigiously by leaves severed due to the nursery staff's forceful watering practices. Plantlets were everywhere, from the rims of the pots and flats to the exposed wood bench top and the gravel of the greenhouse floor beneath the bench. For me the most curious event produced by this "experiment", was that in this somewhat bright natural light, without any "strong" or "direct" sunlight, plants of Pinguicula esseriana, Pinguicula cyclosecta , and Pinguicula 'Sethos' became almost indistinguishable from each other in their vegetative growth. Another curious event was their flowering. It was very full and complete, nearly every medium to large size specimen produced multiple flowers, and they all bloomed together. There were so many plants crowded together in this area that the nursery owner requested that I please come thin them out. I soon obliged and decided to switch the plantings to 100% pumice.
It was this same nursery that had been my initial source of pumice. I had obtained some of this pumice from them a few years earlier for the explicit purpose of trying it with CP and quickly learned to appreciate its properties.
This time I used small trays (4" x 6") with a few vertical one inch slits cut in their bottoms -- along their sides and ends. I then filled the trays 1/2 full with pumice and sprinkled a little granulated peat moss on the surface and watered it in. This was to help hold the surface of the pumice together until the plants had established themselves. It is now many months later and the plants are all thriving in this nearly 100% pumice media.</span>