In mid-April I will be moving down to Mississippi for about three and a half months for a new job, and most of my plants are coming with me, but I just know those warm, steamy nights would do my Drosophyllum and Darlingtonia in quickly. So I'm wondering if I might be able to find someone in an appropriate Bay Area microclimate to take them in during the period.
Someone with experience with one or both of these species would be great, but a grower without experience would work too as long as the climate is right (after all, I didn't have any experience with these species when I bought them). Preferably, I'm looking for someone who lives near the coast and gets cold, foggy/dewy nights during the summer, since that's how Drosophyllum gets most of its water (in the wild and on my deck). Cool nights also seem to be highly beneficial (and quite possibly critical) to the health of Darlingtonia too. I live in Novato between the ocean and the bay, and average nightly temps here even in the middle of summer drop to about 55 degrees.
Despite these plants' reputations of being hard to grow, mine have been incredibly easy. For the Drosophyllum, all I do is give it a deep watering with distilled water once a week, maybe slightly more often when we get a heat wave where the fog doesn't come in. The Darlingtonia comes with a solar-powered DIY self-watering rig that continually flushes water over the roots during the day - all you need to do is replace water as it evaporates and preferably keep the reservoir tank out of the sunlight to keep it cool as long as possible (this is another reason why the cold nights are important). Both plants sit in full sun all day, even in the summer.
Anyway, there will be compensation to cover the cost of water + maintenance. I'll post a photo of the plants in a bit... Flickr seems to be down right now.
Someone with experience with one or both of these species would be great, but a grower without experience would work too as long as the climate is right (after all, I didn't have any experience with these species when I bought them). Preferably, I'm looking for someone who lives near the coast and gets cold, foggy/dewy nights during the summer, since that's how Drosophyllum gets most of its water (in the wild and on my deck). Cool nights also seem to be highly beneficial (and quite possibly critical) to the health of Darlingtonia too. I live in Novato between the ocean and the bay, and average nightly temps here even in the middle of summer drop to about 55 degrees.
Despite these plants' reputations of being hard to grow, mine have been incredibly easy. For the Drosophyllum, all I do is give it a deep watering with distilled water once a week, maybe slightly more often when we get a heat wave where the fog doesn't come in. The Darlingtonia comes with a solar-powered DIY self-watering rig that continually flushes water over the roots during the day - all you need to do is replace water as it evaporates and preferably keep the reservoir tank out of the sunlight to keep it cool as long as possible (this is another reason why the cold nights are important). Both plants sit in full sun all day, even in the summer.
Anyway, there will be compensation to cover the cost of water + maintenance. I'll post a photo of the plants in a bit... Flickr seems to be down right now.