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Hello!

M

MDPotter

Hi all, Im another noob to the CP scene:)
I recently did an impulse buy at Lowes... twice... and in the last two weeks have made 3 mini-island-bogs of VFTs on my back patio with the help of Savage Garden, the interweb, and some tips from reading here at terraforum and advice I received from the carnivorous plants UK forum. Which I only joined btw because for some reason my home email was being rejected by this forums signup filter (Id get a message: cannot use that email address onthis forum, even though my email is a bellsouth.net address). I got around it (finally) by using my work email to sign up and then switching it to my home email in the control panel.
Anywayz... Ill be posting some questions in the appropriate forums soon cause I have some D Adelae that are struggling atm and some more dews on the way (binata & multifada).
And I have a nepenthes of an unknown variety (it was labeled sarracinia!?!?!) that seems to be doing great.
Aaaand... I just learned that I have a CP nursery locally down here in South Florida that specializes in nepenthes, so Ill be adding to that part of my collection soon.
Being that I live in south Florida it is very tough to get good, specific advice on growing down here cause the climate is at an extreme zone-wise (10), so Im experimenting.
So there you go, Ill post pics of all my dabbling in the next day or 3, thanks for reading!
 
Here's the plants I got from lowes in theri new home:

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Some dentae with 4 typs in the middle that I got from dangerousplants, small compared to the lowes (much younger I would guess) but thriving madly, grow like weeds, can see the difference from am to pm:

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and finally a ring of reds around 4 typs, from same seller, bigger than the dentae but still small, tons of traps coming up:

Picture_003-750.jpg
 
Welcome to the forums MD... let the obsession begin.
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Welcome Matt! Your plants look very happy. Is that D.adelae in the back ground of the 3rd pic?
dewy
 
Welcome to CP.... I mean TerraForums!
 
Hello Matt-- Welcome!

Nice looking VFTs. If there are only Venus Flytraps in a particular minibog, consider letting them dry out some between waterings instead of standing in water all the time.

Being just moist instead of continually wet can do a lot of good for VFTs, in my experience, though others may disagree. The plants may grow a little more conservatively when they are drier, but they become very healthy, hardy, vigorous and larger. In too much water they may grow fast, but sometimes become leggy and weak. To use an analogy, it's almost like they are drinking as fast as they can in order to keep from slowly drowning (rotting/dying)!

I don't know why I'm so "evangelical" about this point! Perhaps because there seems to be so much information that gives the impression that the Venus Flytrap is a bog or swamp plant instead of a moist, sandy, grassy savannah dweller. Sorry everyone--
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^I agree about that.

As a kid, all the children books I read about carnivorous plants usually group them as bog plants, but after reading Schnell's book where he differentiates between the habitats, it all made much more sense.  In fact, when visiting the NJ pine barren "bogs," I've noticed they were quite different than the northern spruce bogs found in Acadia, Maine.  They were more akin to the sandy savannahs that I've seen in Big Thicket, Texas.  A LOT of sand and dry spells under leafless pines.  D. filiformis grows in almost pure sand in S. Jersey Pine Barrens, and pics of flytraps in the wild look similar.

Oh, and welcome!  I just recently joined too and this forum is FULL of help and knowledge, not to mention generous people.
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Hey everyone, thanks for the replies.

Yes dewy thats a D adelae, I picked up a total of 4 from lowes the same time I got the vfts in the top pic. Unfortunately they are not doing so well, I was letting them get some morning sun (around 2-3 hoursish) and over the course of a few days they have developed signs of stress so Ive moved them into complete shade. Actually I put one in the house on a windowsill to see how it handles a/c. Im also not sure how wet they should be cause theyre still in the so-called 'lowes little plastic boxes of death' packed in moss. I need to repot them I know but I only started my cp collection 2 weeks ago:)

xscd: yes I am letting the trays go dry before refilling. These pics were taken the day after repotting the internet plants, so they are full. I actually bought the lowes plants to practice repotting vfts a few days before my internet order arrived (and thats what they looked like, I had nothing to do with the length of the leaves:)), and Im glad I did because (a) the lowes plants were actually in really good shape and look great, and (b) the internet plants were delayed several weeks so the shipper gave me some extra plants... I ordered 8, got 24! But the net plants are smaller and younger, so I have variety of age and variants. Also, I recently discovered a CP nursery down here in south florida (ten minutes away:)) that mainly handles nepenthes but they have flytraps too, just not for sale, and they were nice enough to offer me advice on my setup via email. And handling dormancy (Im going to be reducing watering and moving them to shade and crossing my fingers, thats what the local nursery said they do so we'll see). I plan on actually visiting their nursery soon, nepenthes are my next step, I have one, want more. The obsession has begun.

ps: Please excuse if I repeated stuff from my original post but Im at work atm and am responding between ... working;)
 
To add to what xscd wrote, when plants experience a bit of drying, it forces root development and the those roots go down deeper. In contrast, if there is always water around, that discourages root development. No incentive. Should it go totally dry, without root develpment, the plant would be toast. Another analogy is that of muscles. An exercised muscle (or body) can endure more punishment if needed. One that isn't challenged, when it is, won't be able to handle it. There's a bit of "get tough or die" with all this, not unlike a certain Johnny Cash song from the 60's.
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  • #10
The reds are coming along nicely, and my first flower.

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  • #11
NICE!! be careful with flowering they put so much enerygy into flowering and if they arnt healthy it might mess them up. get some seeds by 'selfing' it and make more! you might see slowed growth in your flowering plant after it is done. if you dont want that to happen to your other ones cut them of when the stalks are a couple of inches tall.
good luck
alex
 
  • #13
[b said:
Quote[/b] (MDPotter @ May 06 2006,10:42)]Links to the full size pics for better viewing  
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http://www.picfront.com/images/Picture_001.jpg

http://www.picfront.com/images/Picture_005.jpg

Yes, Ive been told that about the flowers and I will trim the rest but Im letting that one grow, I want to see how it affects the plant. Because Im eeeeviiiilllllll  
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Hmm, the devil emote doesnt appear to work, so u get angry. Looks evil enuff.
Click to expand...
Actually, if given plenty of sunlight, flowers will not kill a VFT. Now, if the VFT is unhealthy, then the flowering will kill it, but a healthy VFT will not die from flowering IME.
dewy
 
  • #14
My new dews
Binata, dichotoma and multifada all in one pot:

DSC00030.jpg


DSC00028.jpg
 
  • #15
Where in the heck are you getting this garbage, Glider? Just because its in print don't make it so!!!!! My VFT's are allowed to flower every year, AND pollinated for genetic diversity. Yes. They are mixed with red dragons, red pirhanas, typicals, all that, and I give seed away in buckets! Fallacy, G14!!! Pure crap! The explanation about the plant being healthy and producing and one not too happy where its at and flowering, well, my odds are on the healthy one! The one not quite right in its environ will have a real bad time, while those happy in there captivity, flower all the time, no worse for wear. If this flowering garbage was true, then we would have dang few VFT's in the wild because they would be busy dieing off! If your plant gets weak while flowering, then check out its environment. Don't take the word of a YEARS OLD idiom, proven wrong time and again. Healthy environment= a strong, healthy, flowering, producing, VFT! Now get Growing!!!!
 
  • #16
Alright...just think about it. VFTs grow in the wild. VFTs produce flowers in the wild. Nobody is out there cutting the flowers off the VFTs. The VFTs do not all die. They do what nature intended...make flowers to procreate.

As with many plants, making flowers and producing seed takes energy. Its growth might slow down some but otherwise, it certainly doesn't hurt the plant. Where in the world did that rumor get started?

Nice pot o' stickies MDP. And welcome to the forums.
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  • #17
no...(geeze this got outta hand) if your VFT is not doing so hot then it can be a death wish...wait a sec! i thought i edited out that part when i put in the plant may declide after flowering...sorry ill do that right now. and i did say that if the plant wasnt healthy(never said that his was) it might die though!
Bugweed: i know that if the plant is healthy and doing great it can flower without many side effects. I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW!

Guys, IM SORRY i get most of my knowldge from The Savage Garden so dont blame me, blame Peter! back when i first posted that i didnt know that some of the info in Peter's book was very wrong. like U. longifolia being epiphatic! im sorry!
alex
 
  • #18
Alex, don't sweat it. Or take it so hard. Wrong info is everywhere out there and we learn as we grow. Peter had a lot of wrong information in his book, BUT, that is what he had been taught at that time and up to that point. Newer additions of his book have corrections. Like Schnell's Ghost being anthocyanin free. OOPS! WRONG!! Believe me, he heard all about it ALL about it! And VFT's living only 2 or 3 decades. Alex, As long as I have been growing, I don't know ANYONE who outlived his VFT's. Even collections 55 years old, and MORE!!! So I grew up with wrong info too, and have had to make an awful lot of changes over the years, and I became a fairly competent grower anyway. Live and learn and grow. That goes for all of us, Alex. So don't feel like you made a supreme error. I have made worse ones, believe me!!!!
 
  • #19
[b said:
Quote[/b] (MDPotter @ May 24 2006,4:42)]My new dews
Binata, dichotoma and multifada all in one pot:

DSC00030.jpg


DSC00028.jpg
Click to expand...
Wow looking good MD.Keep those pictures coming from time to time.I always like to see howmuch peoples plants grow.
 
  • #20
Thanks Duke, Ill post more pics of everything soon, interesting info too guys, so if savage garden is a bit behind the info curve, any recommendations?
 
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