Very Newbie!

[krochetnkat]

My name is Katrina and I am a newbie both to this group and to CPs. I bought my first Dionaea 6 months ago and with a little prayer and a whole lot of Barry Rice's CP FAQs, my little one has survived my learning. Of course, I was one of the bad people who didn't do the research before they leapt into this challenge and boy when I got home and started reading about them I realized what I got myself into hahaha HOWEVER, this has been one of the most exciting things I have ever done (Sad isn't it) and I so look forward to this challenge that I added a new VFT to the family and have been looking into different CPs to bring into our home (However, this will take time. I don't wanna get in over my head and frankly, I dont think my husband finds them QUITE as wonderful as I DO HAHAHA).

Can't wait to meet and learn from you all.

Katrina from Virginia.

 

[Bugweed]

Well, We all gotta start somewhere. And you started in the right place! TERRAFORUMS!!!!!! You don't always need money here, Katrina. Lotsa folks here who are happy to share plants, good times, bad times, and help in any way they can! WELCOME HOME, Katrina!!!

 

[Clint]

Welcome!

 

[adnedarn]

Barry Rice's page is a good place to start. Welcome to the forums!
Andrew

 

[glider14]

welcome! and you havent even realized the full consequence to getting into CPs. next itll be bladderowrts or sundews. then to sarracenia...the list continues. its like a black hole and you get sucked into it. good luck with your little one!
Alex

 

[krochetnkat]

I thank you all for the very wonderful and warm welcome. My friends have already told me that they can see this becoming an obscession and I truly hope it does. At least it is one that is worthy

Glider~ I can see how this could be a black hole. I know I was so happy when my first came out of dormancy that I was practically floating when I got the second. I was looking hard at some of the seeds online

Adnedarn~ YES! I have spent so much time reading his site that I actually emailed him and told him that the URL to his site should be printed on every VFT sold in the world (I got mine at Walmart and now I see why so many die... If people follow their instructions... *Sigh*) That site is probably the main reason mine survive hehehe

Bugweed~ That is wonderful and I hope that someday I can be a contributor of both seeds and knowledge to others

Thanks again all!

 

[Av8tor1]

Katrina,

Invest in Barry's new book and "The Savage Garden" both are a must have ref...

Cheers'
Av

 

[jimscott]

Welcome to TF and enjoy the hodgepodge of characters we represent!

 

[z5guy]

yes, a great community, these fine folk can solve any problem and answer any qestion!

 

[PlantAKiss]

Hello Katrina and welcome to the forums.

Uh oh...you've gone and done it now! You're gonna be hopelessly addicted. hehe It happens to everybody. You get a flytrap, you come here, you do some reading and...WHAM! You gotta have it all!

Its a great hobby and people get very passionate about it. I hope you will to.

BTW...its GREAT to see another Virginian here! I live in Richmond. Cynic81 also lives here going to school at VCU. Kahnli is a native Virginia but not currently living here. And there are a lot of important CP folks that live in VA.

Jump into the fray and join in! Its a great group here.

 

[krochetnkat]

Passionate, I do believe I am going to be. hahaha I spent a majority of this evening reading through the different posts and just absorbing all information that I can. Terra Forums is a wonderful wealth of information!!

It is wonderful to meet others from VA Being in No. Va. and NEW to the area on top of that, I don't get to meet too many people with my interests.

 

[xvart]

Barry Rice's page is a good place to start.

I think many of us first utilized Barry's FAQ as a first resource. It's a great place to start!

My friends have already told me that they can see this becoming an obscession and I truly hope it does. At least it is one that is worthy

I've had a lot of obsessions so far in my life, and I think CPs is probably the most worthy and rewarding one thus far!




Welcome to the TF! I've said it before and I'll say it again, Terraforums is the place where I "waste" so much time!

its like a black hole and you get sucked into it.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

xvart.

 

[jimscott]

When I was brand new to this hobby I "stumbled" onto the dicussion forum while just trying to figure out what in the world I was sold at Lowes. The books (Savage Garden & CP"s of Canada & the US) were helpful, but not not conclusive. So I Googled like crazy and found this place. I had no idea that a discussion forum concept even existed, much less about cp's. I had to familiarize myself with the terminology of cp's and learned quite a bit about pc vernacular, as well as how to host pictures and bring them to the forum (mostly from teenagers.

You will notice that when you ask a question about water / soil. lighting, dormancy, etc... you will get a lot of varying opinions and approaches and that can be confusing at first, especially when one is looking for the best or the right answer. All I can say is that it takes awhile to find the common thread among the approaches.

I'm sure you've heard enough about the hurricane reference, so I'll just encourage you to keep, "walking on sunshine".

 

[krochetnkat]

Already, just reading through the forums, I have learned more than I would have possibly imagined and I didn't think that was possible after reading Barry Rice's page. haha Everyone seems just wonderful. I have read several posts on lighting where several people using the same form of lighting was receiving different results and it made me realize that a lot of this may be trial and error on top of constantly educating myself. I had my poor little Grrr (What I call my first VFT) under two grow lights and while he did survive dormancy and is coming up... the traps, however, aren't as large as I believe they should be and that lead me to believe I was doing something wrong. I was! He is getting the wrong kind of light (Poor Grrr). So I started reading up on the lights and in the meantime put foil around his small terrarium, as was suggested here in the forums. I may be silly but I can already see a difference!

 

[Presto]

yay for yarn!! I'm a knitter...never quite got into crocheting. anyway, welcome!!

 

[krochetnkat]

yay for yarn!! I'm a knitter...never quite got into crocheting. anyway, welcome!!

I can do some (Not really enough to mention) knitting. My Great Grandma taught me to crochet when I was like 7 or 8 and while I didn't crochet much as a teen... I took off about 5 years ago I am really thinking about crocheting a little VFT!

If you wanna see some of my work you can go to http://spaces.msn.com/katcrochet

I haven't been doing a lot of crochet recently... perhaps the crochet VFT will get me back in the mood? Gotta do something while I am sitting there watching my plants all night!

 

[jimscott]

Don't tell anyone, but when I was a kid, I was taught how to knit and handsew. Never learned crocheting.

Getting back to the forum input, yes, there is a lot of trial and error! Sometimes one's results are not necessarily the variables that one puts into it, but simply a matter of hardiness of a given plant.... or the neglect thereof, by Lowes, Home Depot,....

 

[krochetnkat]

Yes, and it always makes my heart fall to the floor to see the VFTs at Walmart. It is obvious that they aren't well taken care of and you see parents letting their children tripthe traps. It is amazing any of those poor babies survive!!! If I had the money I would buy them all just to get them out of there, sadly tho, that just makes it to where they go and get more

 

[Finch]

I found terraforums through the link in barry's site. We are laid back here (not so much me lately… but that’s a story for another time) and you can ask away- the search feature is a pain and i have never seen anyone get angry about people not searching. If you can google it, great, if not, thats what we are here for

 

[Est]

Welcome, welcome! As so many have said already (and better than me, I might add,) prepare to get entrenched in this great hobby (and for some of us, lifestyle.)

Yes, and it always makes my heart fall to the floor to see the VFTs at Walmart. It is obvious that they aren't well taken care of and you see parents letting their children tripthe traps. It is amazing any of those poor babies survive!!! If I had the money I would buy them all just to get them out of there, sadly tho, that just makes it to where they go and get more

One of the things you learn to appreciate in this hobby is innovation. The great innovation for this case being our friend tissue culture (AKA "TC".) Today, if you see a plant at Lowes, Home Depot, or any other store where it will probably bought by someone who will kill it (if it's luckly enough to make it that far,) you can at least console yourself with the fact that these plants weren't just ripped out of their natural habitats and put on the shelves to die. Thanks to tissue culture, both the uninformed and the learning can afford to kill a few of these guys without doing damage to the gene pool of VFTs in general.

A life is still a life, but at least in the case of the Superstore VFT it doesn't represent the destruction/poaching of a natural habitat.

I'm sure you'll be getting "vomitted" on by year-old Sarracenia pitchers as you "prune" them in no time! Yum! Glad to have you here.