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  • #42
Well done indeed!
Av
 
  • #44
Wow, great growing Ron.
I hope to be able to get the correct growing conditions for this plant soon. I want to grow it.
Thanks for the nice comments. While their conditions for 'happiness' is not wide, once you find out the range, the plants are very easy, grow well, put out many babies & are very easy to propagate. I highly recommend experimentation with multiple clones (keeping one as a 'safety') to see what works for you & your conditions. For most of this time I kept one 'mother plant' and a number of smaller ones of different sizes. I stupidly allowed my original 'mother plant' to die from neglect. To replace her, I took a small plant, gave it a larger pot & started to regularly feed it with wingless fruit flies*. The plant responded with great growth, outgrowing the pot at least once (or twice). The largest my original plant got was probably 4-4.5" (10-11cm) iirc. This plant is currently larger than 18 cm diameter.

For media, I use 100% live LFS in a pot 3.5" tall which typically sits in a small amount of water (when I tried peat-based media - the plants died). If I use a shorter pot, the plant gets too wet and doesn't tend to grow well**. To maintain very high humidity, a humidity dome is normally used (see pic). Although keeping a plant 'sealed' & sitting is water is normally not recommended, with my experimenting over the years, this setup has produced the largest, strongest plants. If you want to grow them in warmer, more open conditions, check w/ Andrew or Pyro - they've had success in the southern USA without being fully covered. While they can be quite picky with conditions, they are very good at letting you know when they are not happy. The plant sits in a north-facing window in my office all winter & when temperatures rise, I take it into the basement (where it pouts all summer).

While the flowering is indeed quite uncommon, I tend to believe that the combination of conditions (temperatures, media, food) combined to induce the blooming. Another plant that I fed much less frequently also sent up a flower stalk but it ceased development several weeks after I stopped feeding it.

D. schizandra in its 'home'.
Dschizandraunderdome042110RS.jpg



* which is a pain btw. Once a week (or every 2nd week or 3rd week), I would stick 3-5 wff's on a section of leaf, keep them there for 2-4 days & ideally remove them just before mold started to form. After removing the partially-digested wff's, I wiped that part of the leaf with 70% isopropyl alcohol. If I did not do this, mold would form & create holes in the leaves.
** I'm growing another plant in a pot barely 1" high & I do not keep it sitting in water. The tray stays dry & I water a little every week or two.
 
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  • #45
If you have trouble with mold, go to your local pet store and buy Freeze dried blood worms, soak each one is alcohol/peroxide, then allow it to dry out completely. Once dry again, dip in a tiny amount of distilled/RO water and try feeding that way. Should delay mold quite a bit, I think you are having trouble with mold because fruit fly cultures are saturated with all sorts of fungi.

-Dave
 
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