Lil Stinkpot
Lucky Greenhorn
Over the past couple years I've had a bit of a mystery, involving a glazed ceramic pot. It has a pretty, dark, bronzy glaze; it's one of my favorite pots, actually.
Two years ago I had a large clump of Sarracenia leucophylla in the pot. It's un-drained, but that just means extra attention with watering. But then, the next spring my leucs spontaneously died. It was very fast, within one day they wilted; within a week they were dead. I was stumped! I thought it was some kind of funky rot caused by keeping them in un-drained pots, so all the Sarrs got moved to regular pots.
Skip ahead to last summer, nearly fall, when I had had enough of reading about others' un-drained pots succeeding, without me having my own, so I put my big pots back into use. I know they work; the pots don't kill the plants. My problem must have been overwatering, bad soil, or...or... something. Four pots were dug out: two plastic-lined aluminum, one clear-glazed terra cotta, and the bronze-glazed. During winter I changed the soil in all my Sarr pots, even the bog. This is important, because it means that what happened next was not caused by rotten soil.
Skip once again to two days ago, late spring, when all the plants are springing forth with amazing vigor. That old mystery has shown up again, with my three S. "Judith hindle" spontaneously wilting. I thought, and thought, and thought... I'd seen this before, and never solved it. It only ever happened in the bronze pot. What about THIS pot was killing plants?
I talked it out on the chat here, and voiced an idea that I was kicking around. It sounded ridiculous, but.... What if it's something in the glaze? I was thinking about leaded glaze poisoning people, and thought that maybe that pretty color was made with copper, a poison for plants. We agreed, us on the chat that night, that it was almost certainly coppered glaze that killed my plants.
I've been thinking about it, and I wonder if the situation might have been exacerbated by the acidic peat soil. I think of the time when people thought tomatoes were poison, becaust they were eating them off of lead plates, and the acid was dissolving the lead. Who knows? All I know is that I'm not going to use that pot again for my precious bog plants.
I may make an experiment of it later, by drilling out a drainage hole, and putting regular flowers in it, to see just how toxic the glaze is. I know it won't kill everything at a touch like Roundup does; it's often used as a fungicide on fruit trees. So I may yet be able to use this thing.
And the "Judith hindle"? They are recovering quite nicely in a broad dish-garden type pot with fresh soil, sitting in a water tray. Whatever tissues wilted and wrinkled have since dried up and got crumpled off (still green, not brown!), and whatever was only wilted is slowly re-inflating. They will live! Unfortunately, the only flower was the first to go crispy. I was hoping to cross her with Dainas!
Two years ago I had a large clump of Sarracenia leucophylla in the pot. It's un-drained, but that just means extra attention with watering. But then, the next spring my leucs spontaneously died. It was very fast, within one day they wilted; within a week they were dead. I was stumped! I thought it was some kind of funky rot caused by keeping them in un-drained pots, so all the Sarrs got moved to regular pots.
Skip ahead to last summer, nearly fall, when I had had enough of reading about others' un-drained pots succeeding, without me having my own, so I put my big pots back into use. I know they work; the pots don't kill the plants. My problem must have been overwatering, bad soil, or...or... something. Four pots were dug out: two plastic-lined aluminum, one clear-glazed terra cotta, and the bronze-glazed. During winter I changed the soil in all my Sarr pots, even the bog. This is important, because it means that what happened next was not caused by rotten soil.
Skip once again to two days ago, late spring, when all the plants are springing forth with amazing vigor. That old mystery has shown up again, with my three S. "Judith hindle" spontaneously wilting. I thought, and thought, and thought... I'd seen this before, and never solved it. It only ever happened in the bronze pot. What about THIS pot was killing plants?
I talked it out on the chat here, and voiced an idea that I was kicking around. It sounded ridiculous, but.... What if it's something in the glaze? I was thinking about leaded glaze poisoning people, and thought that maybe that pretty color was made with copper, a poison for plants. We agreed, us on the chat that night, that it was almost certainly coppered glaze that killed my plants.
I've been thinking about it, and I wonder if the situation might have been exacerbated by the acidic peat soil. I think of the time when people thought tomatoes were poison, becaust they were eating them off of lead plates, and the acid was dissolving the lead. Who knows? All I know is that I'm not going to use that pot again for my precious bog plants.
I may make an experiment of it later, by drilling out a drainage hole, and putting regular flowers in it, to see just how toxic the glaze is. I know it won't kill everything at a touch like Roundup does; it's often used as a fungicide on fruit trees. So I may yet be able to use this thing.
And the "Judith hindle"? They are recovering quite nicely in a broad dish-garden type pot with fresh soil, sitting in a water tray. Whatever tissues wilted and wrinkled have since dried up and got crumpled off (still green, not brown!), and whatever was only wilted is slowly re-inflating. They will live! Unfortunately, the only flower was the first to go crispy. I was hoping to cross her with Dainas!