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My cephalotus arrives tomorrow

Wolfn

Agent of Chaos
I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight. :rookwoot:

I'm already thinking of where I'll place it, how much water I'll give it, adding some lava rock to the soil, etc.

Heck, I might even create a sign that says "welcome to Florida" :D
 
Thanks for letting everyone know.
 
It's probably not a good idea to mess with the soil until the ceph recovers from being shipped. It might not recover from the additional stress of repotting. A lot of peoples cephs die after being repotted even when they weren't stressed to begin with.
 
I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight. :rookwoot:

I'm already thinking of where I'll place it, how much water I'll give it, adding some lava rock to the soil, etc.

Heck, I might even create a sign that says "welcome to Florida" :D

Yeah, good for you. I think that the first picture I had ever seen of a Cephalotus was from Randall Schwartz's 1974 Carnivorous Plants, a little paperback I needled my father into buying for something like a buck when I was a little kid in the 70s. The other cool thing was that, when you flipped through the book, there was this little zoetrope-like effect on the pages of a fly approaching, landing, and being captured by a Venus Flytrap. Cooool . . .

But the thing that always got me was the supposed difficulty in growing a little fuzzy pitcher plant that he described luridly as having, "an odd combination of plush pubescence and deadly appearance." Schwartz was a real downer when it came to that. "While many people grow Cephalotus, real success is rare. Occasionally the plants flower and flourish in captivity, but vigor seems sporadic," was all we had to go on back then, along with oddball notions of salt being needed in the compost and waving a chicken -- a free range chicken -- over the plant. Even Barry Rice seems to be on the difficulty bandwagon . . .

It is such a simple plant to deal with. Don't obsess over it or kill it with kindness. Don't poke it with a stick. Simply don't **** with it and you'll be happy . . .
 
It's probably not a good idea to mess with the soil until the ceph recovers from being shipped. It might not recover from the additional stress of repotting. A lot of peoples cephs die after being repotted even when they weren't stressed to begin with.

I've basically planned to take the whole plant (and soil that it's in) and place it in a much larger pot and keep it in the larger pot for many years. I'm just going to fill in the space between the pot and soil. However, I'm thinking of dressing the top of the soil with tiny rocks to keep the plant fairly dry (but the roots wet).

Also, how can I encourage moss to grow on the soil? Keep in mind I'm growing this indoors.
 
I've basically planned to take the whole plant (and soil that it's in) and place it in a much larger pot and keep it in the larger pot for many years. I'm just going to fill in the space between the pot and soil. However, I'm thinking of dressing the top of the soil with tiny rocks to keep the plant fairly dry (but the roots wet).

Also, how can I encourage moss to grow on the soil? Keep in mind I'm growing this indoors.

Moss will inevitably grow on the surface whether you desire it or not, since so many spores are in the compost to begin with and are generally airborne as well. Sterility only exists in the realm of Band-Aids -- and one at least hoped, Brittney Spears, not soil. I would probably put off the rocks for the time being. In a few weeks if not sooner, you'll see greening of the pot as moss begins to establish itself . . .

Niiiiice . . .
 
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