A few pics of my humble collection - picture intensive

[TheFury]

Hey all - thought I might share a few pics!

A few shots of some of my pings that seem to be doing very well:

P. esseriana (thanks SDCPs!)

P. 'Sethos' (thanks SDCPs!!)

P. moctezumae (made quite a nice recovery after a near-death experience)

And the rest:

N. ventricosa. Sorry for the unsightly mess on the pitchers; it just had a meal. A few pitchers died recently but it's still pumping new ones out. There are three more coming in on the other side of the plant.

D. scorpiodes not looking TOO happy, but starting to produce gemmae. Those white flecks I believe are the beginnings of an aphid infestation - I brought out the neem with pyrethrines early on these guys.

D. nitidula x pulchella. Not looking happy at all, but they haven't gotten any worse for around two months now. And they're producing gemmae!

D. enodes starting to produce gemmae!!

D. callistos with nice crowns of gemmae. How can I tell when these things are ripe for the pickin'??

D. spatulata "Fraser Island" looking a bit thirsty for light. Hold out a bit longer and the photoperiod will increase soon enough! White flecks... stupid aphids! I hope you like the taste of neem. Also looks like a D. capensis seed hitched a ride over in the pot and recently began to sprout. Bonus!

All of these D. indica seedlings came to me via a U. longifolia I got in a trade with SDCPs (THANKS!!). Some are happier than others, but all have grown up quite nicely.

D. capensis "broad leaf" (THANKS SDCPs!!... anyone noticing a pattern here?). It's looking much better after I got rid of the tiny white things (well, most of them) that were infesting it. Unfortunately, its brother in the same pot did not survive the swarm.

D. binata that I propagated from a plant that came to me growing in a S. flava that I have since traded away. This thing came from very humble beginnings, and now it's quite large... and still growing!

Typical VFT that I rescued from Lowes on an impulse. Traps are coloring up nicely.

U. sandersonii with D. spatulata and D. indica growing out of it (thanks SDCPs!!!!). Also getting my first flower out of the utric at the top right hand corner of the pic!

S. purpurea that I rescued from Lowes in the fall. I'm thrilled with the color it's developed.

 

[eou812]

Nice i have about all the plant you have and they look about the same except my pygmies look better.

 

[Exo]

You have a nice selection there, and that S.pupurea is beautiful.

 

[Adam]

You have a nice selection there, and that S.pupurea is beautiful.

I agree. The spats are heavenly(spathulata)!

 

[Dexenthes]

Looking good! You've got some terrific coloration on those Pinguicula.

As far as aphids go, of course get the neem oil and what other remedy you need to get to spray on your plants but...

I've found that killing each and every one is just as if not more effective. Just go in there with a pocket knife and be really careful, scoop each off the leaf and squash it. Seeing an aphids guts all over is so satisfying.

That's how I've literally dealt with aphids since I was a small child and it surprisingly has worked.

 

[MH1]

I agree with Dexenthes... Aphid squishing all the way! XD As said before, nice pings

 

[tommyr]

Very nice plants! Congrats!

 

[CPlantaholic]

Congrats on the gemmae! I'm glad that photoperiod worked for you. The D. callistos look ripe, for sure.

So what distance do you have your T-8s away from the plants, now?
Looks like you could move them even closer, judging by the D. spatulata forms- but I'm guessing that you've been feeding them regularly, since the D. indica is coming along quite nicely.

 

[TheFury]

Thank you all for the kind words!

My dews could be dewier and my pings could be flowering, but I'm sure once I get my photoperiod back up to 16 hours (it's at 10 right now for gemmae production on my pygmies) everything will look much happier. I also fed a couple of those dews last weekend so dew production hasn't quite picked up yet.

Dex and MH - squishing aphids is definitely something that I've indulged in before I wanted to blast them with pesticides to take care of any eggs they may have laid, but since populations don't seem to be exploding anymore, smooshed aphids are back on the menu for my dews!

CPlantaholic - I'll harvest the gemmae off of my D. callistos today (I wish I had a gemmae vacuum handy). How about the other ones? The nitidula x pulchella have decent sized crowns on them, but I just can't tell! And the others? I want to get them before they do damage to the mother plants.

Also, my T8s are about 6" above my plants. Based on my conditions, I did some brief calculations according to this guide and came out with a light intensity on the upper end of the "hazy day" range (closer to 50K lux). This should be plenty of light by any measure. BUT, in making these calculations, I made the assumption that my Flora Sun grow bulbs pump out 2600 lumens. I know my other two lights, the GE 4100K 32 watt "cool white" bulbs put out 2850 lumens, so I thought 2600 was reasonable. BUT, I can't find the actual lumen count for the Flora Sun bulbs published ANYWHERE. Perhaps my plants are getting a lot less light than I think they are. In your/anyone's experience, do grow bulbs put out less light than standard bulbs?

EDIT: PS, CPlantaholic, your new Youtube video tours are great! Very informative; thanks for making all that effort.

 

[ellisonk001]

Beautiful plants; you have really done a good job with the S. purpurea rescue, I love the color. Thanks for sharing.

 

[TheFury]

Thanks! I'm happy to see the plant doing so well under lights. Unfortunately, dormancy next season will be a real challenge given that I live in a small apartment with no outdoor space. But that's not for another year!!

 

[CPlantaholic]

The outer D. enodes, outer D. nitidula x pulchella, and D. scorpioides look like they're ready. The scorpioides look a bit jammed in there, and my D. roseana did the same thing, but the situation only got worse as I waited, and I ended up having to sacrafice my plant to collect the 10 gemmae but I didn't have any fancy tools- just tweezers.

As for the lighting, if you're not comfortable moving it closer, then you can leave it, and the plants will probably start to color up a bit more when they get a 16 hour photoperiod. Then you can judge it from there. With my T-8 fixtures, at least, I can put the fixture within 1 inch of pretty much all my sundews without having to worry about any burning. I just went off of what Tamlin recommended, and it seems to work well. I've never done any calculations, but I use a cool 2700 lumen 6500K and "sunny" 2800 lumen 5000k. The thing I like about having them closer is that if you're feeding them regularly, it takes a lot less time for the leaves/tentacles to produce dew and develop red coloration, which means that you can feed them more often, and you can make them grow/ flower even faster.

Thanks for the compliment on the vids. Some are a bit rough on the audio portion, but if you put it on mute, then you can at least see what the plant looks like

 

[TheFury]

Hmm thanks! I just collected the gemmae off of my D. callistos and spread about 2/3 of them around the bases of the mother plants. Should have a nice colony in a few months. Looks like I can start working on the others too!

Sorry to bug you with questions, but...

1) To clarify, do you mean that the D. scorp look like they're packed together too tightly in the pot, or the gemmae seem to be jammed into each plant pretty good?

2) Moving the lights any closer wouldn't be practical as they would start to touch the tops of my sarr and my D. capensis. Perhaps if I expand my collection out onto a second shelf I'll have room to group plants by height. But until then, I'll have to work with light intensity and photoperiod vs. distance to plants. On that note, I've read a number of places that many plants will produce gemmae even without a change in the photoperiod. Have you ever experienced this? Next season, I would love to be able to reduce my photoperiod from 16 hours to, say, 14 hours rather than 9 or 10 and still get gemmae. 10 hours seems to be just too short for some of my other plants in here.

 

[jimscott]

Lots of gemmae to be harvested!

 

[TheFury]

All harvested and spread - looking forward to my forest of pygmies

 

[swords]

I really love how the U. sandersonii has covered that pot!!! What is the soil mix you've used in it and how did you get it to grow so awesome without the usual pest moss?

 

[TheFury]

Thanks! Well, to be quite honest... I don't know what I did! I got this plant in a trade, and it came growing in a shallow (1" deep) tray of what appeared to be a mixture of peat and fine sand, around 50/50. The center of the tray was growing very thick and the outsides were a little thinner. The tray it came in was larger than the pot I wanted to put it in, so I transplanted it into the pot you see in that pic, on top of a slightly sandier mix of peat and sand. After transplanting you could still see plenty of dirt, but in the months since, it's filled out as you can see.

Here's a pic of what it looked like closer to the time of transplanting:

As for my conditions - I grow this thing in a tray alongside my S. purp, some pygmy dews, a nep, and a few tropical pings! I fill the tray up to 1" and then let it evaporate, waiting 3 or so days before refilling. For this plant, I also mist the top heavily and frequently to keep it nice and wet. It's sitting about 6" under 48" 32-watt T8 bulbs.

 

[Yinepu]

Beauties! I'm so jealous!
My Lowes never seems to have CPs... which I suppose in retrospect is good for the CPs!

 

[TheFury]

Thanks! Yeah, I'm surprised that the Lowes in Brooklyn of all places has CPs. They didn't for the longest time (I was checking pretty religiously in the summer and fall), and suddenly in October they must have received a large shipment - S. purpurea, S. "Judith Hindle," D. adelae, and VFTs. I haven't yet seen anything like Neps, Pings, or more exotic offerings like Darlingtonia at my local Lowes... but here's hoping!

 

[tommyr]

Thanks! Yeah, I'm surprised that the Lowes in Brooklyn of all places has CPs. They didn't for the longest time (I was checking pretty religiously in the summer and fall), and suddenly in October they must have received a large shipment - S. purpurea, S. "Judith Hindle," D. adelae, and VFTs. I haven't yet seen anything like Neps, Pings, or more exotic offerings like Darlingtonia at my local Lowes... but here's hoping!

Up here in Poughkeepsie it's the same thing and the same Cps. I never see any Cobras or Neps.