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can sphagnum have too much water?

upper

Capensis Killer
i'm trying to grow some live sphagnum and more after i get it from clint in a while, wanna know if there's such thing as... overwatering.... the sphagnum...
 
They need to be kept saturated until the live material is established.
 
To me, saturated means full of water. Sphagnum prefers being moist, with open spaces full of air, not water.
 
umm..... so it cant be partially drowned in water?
 
I've never saturated it with water. Why would you saturate it? It's light a light and fluffy moss, not wet and soggy!

Treat it like any other CP like Sarracenia or something. Keep it a little more moist in the beginning but not saturated. It liked frequent overhead waterings, not being grown as a semi aquatic. I'm sending you nice moss that you can lay out onto your media and pat down, anyway. There's not really anything to do. This is what I sent to the winner of the other auction. It was kind of compacted because I tried to stuff so much into the bag, so it's not as fluffy as yours will be. He said he loved it, though.

DSC03994.jpg


DSC03990.jpg


BTW, you see some brown because all of the moss isn't laid facing upwards like it would grow and that's the media. You can wash it off it you want, but it's not necessary. This is because once it hit 50 bucks, I decided to pick through it and remove the weeds and sticks ( got about one cup worth out!). I figured that's the least I could do. What you'll get is pretty much plug and play. Pretty stuff. I forgot who won the other auction, but he said he wanted to plant a vertical wall with it and make a wet-wall. I hope that goes well and he posts pictures.

Am I weird that I love the smell? lol.
 
Live Sphagnum can be grown as a semi-aquatic. After all the "quivering bogs" are simply mats of Sphagnum moss floating on water.

From Growing Carnivorous Plants, Barry A. Rice Timber Press 2006 page 178:

Live Sphagnum plants with a coarse, large growth form are useful to make slurry trays, environments that are very useful for species that like extremely wet conditions, such as the near-aquatic Utriculari nelumbifolia. Add strands of sphagnum to a tray of water. Let the tray set for a few weeks in a sunny area, keeping it topped with water. If you did your job well, the Sphagnum plants will grow in the water as semi-aquatics.

However for most purposes your best bet is to follow Av8tor1's guidelines:
6. Water level is critical for respiration and photosynthesis. Most species of Sphagnum will appreciate an occasional flooding of 3 cm or less. Respiration and photosynthesis levels peak out with a water level of 12cm below the surface. (However, this is for mature cultures in which the sphagnum is over 12cm in height) In new cultures you must maintain the water level at a point that prevents the sphagnum from drying out. Browing of the tips is usually an indication that conditions require a higher water level.
 
I've never seen semi-aquatic Sphagnum that looked very robust. At all.

It's a pain to grow in Nepenthes pots. Needs watering like daily in my conditions. Or at least heavy daily misting. It grows SO fast, too. Especially outside.
 
all the best looking live sphagnum that i've ever seen is either in a terrarium or with a ceph.

ps. i just mailed out an envelope with 6$ with a letter to you.
 
yup! I agree. Sphagnum seems to grow best when grown under high humidity......moist, good air conditions. Hey! thats a reason why the best sphagnum grows in highland nepenthes pots. perfect conditions IMO. the most important thing is humidity. DOn't water log it. Take a shallow tray like Clint's. put the moss on it...and spray it with water frequently and put it in a humid place where it gets good bright light. The moss should then take off and later it becomes hard to get rid of. I have gotten to the point of throwing away moss as it over fills a nepenthes pot and almost drowns the plant.
 
  • #10
I saturate it until it's established because until it is established it suffers when just barely moist. Once established it handles the lack of moisture well enough.
 
  • #11
I always read that you can jump start live sphagnum from the dried stuff. Is it hard to do, or relatively easy? Time consuming?
 
  • #12
It's easy. It can take several weeks to months.
 
  • #13
None of the most recent bag I bought of the high quality (light gold color) LFS has returned to life. I don't know if it had been sterilized or spent too long in a hot truck or had been on the store's shelf for too many years. Previous bags of the same stuff were very lively.
 
  • #14
Mine jest grows out of pots that i have top dressed with NZ LFSM.
I don't have time to baby it. it jest appears after awhile. and is usually on top of the pot whether it be peat / perlite or peat / pumice. , not so lucky with peat and sand myself. then it starts oozing down the sides of the pot if there is a enough room in the tray. Mine likes shade almost dense shade
 
  • #15
I read somewhere that it is good to have a layer of peat moss as the base and lay the live sphagnum on top.

My question is that I have some old peat that is unfortunately miracle grow with added fertilizers. Will this be bad for the moss? Should I go and get some better peat?

Thanks in advance for your answers.
 
  • #16
I read somewhere that it is good to have a layer of peat moss as the base and lay the live sphagnum on top.

My question is that I have some old peat that is unfortunately miracle grow with added fertilizers. Will this be bad for the moss? Should I go and get some better peat?

Thanks in advance for your answers.


I would avoid any soil component with fertilizers like the plague, especially when dealing with live sphagnum. Go for some nice Canadian sphagnum peat (not simply "peat" -- there are differences) . . .
 
  • #17
Thanks for the quick reply. Looks like it is another trip off to the store.
 
  • #18
Herenorthere, just a thought on your current attempts with the dried stuff. Are you sure your current water supply is as mineral free as before? Excess sodium from a forgotten (unchanged) R/O membrane has knocked out my beautiful LFS before affecting the plants growing in the LFS. Making me wonder what was going wrong until I remembered about replacing the R/O.

Anyone who cares:
My faveorite way to farm LFS is to shred it by grinding two handfuls of dry stuff togetehr so ll you have is "sawdust" like powder with some larger strandy chunks mixed in. fill a Jiffy seedling tray about 1-2" deep with it. Then I use my pump action garden sprayer with the hose-wand to get it good and wet but not waterlogged, as someone said saturated but with air in the spaces between the chunks not water just like it'd be if it was on top of a highland Nep pot: wet when squeezed but not actually floating in water. Mist it every day or two to keep up the level of moisture up you can use the humidity dome that comes with the jiffy trays but I believe the fresh air and daily misting is better for it than being trapped inside there where fungus can just go nuts in a closed wet place. Within a month or two you should be seeing signs of live sphagnum, ferns, liverworts and other hich hiking botanical goodies. I advise you to pull up any grass stuff that might grow ASAP though otherwise it never goes away and it eventually get's tall-I had some LFS grass that was at least 2 feet high growing in my big N. rajah pot at one time.
 
  • #19
BTW clint...you are not weird for liking the smell of the moss. I love the smell of peat moss and sphagnum. :D lol!
 
  • #20
BTW clint...you are not weird for liking the smell of the moss. I love the smell of peat moss and sphagnum. :D lol!

i thought it was bad to breath that in
you'll get this
step 1
stage1.jpg

step 2: advance infection
stage2.jpg
 
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