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Rainbows in the Midwest

  • #21
Hi,
I have been meaning to try my hand at cultivating Byblis since I first read about them in the Savage Garden. Very beautiful plants indeed.
Will be ordering seeds from Czplants soon but just wanted your opinion on which would be the best to start off with.

I was thinking Byblis gigantea (If they have seed supply) and Byblis liniflora-giant (If they have seed)
They have aquatica and guehoi listed on their site as well.

The environments I have available are:
. Outside in the sun - 5 hours of morning sun. Temps in summer have gone up to 35C
Or
. Indoor Grow rack(Busy building) Will have 4 t8 2foot tubes on for around 16 hours. Temps in house never really goes above 28C

Thanks
 
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  • #22
The tropical species won't have much issue with high temps, though a little shade may do good, and can probably be grown outside during the summer months. Cool weather will slow them considerably. The more Mediterranean species, like B. gigantea, will certainly do fine outside in your region year round.
 
  • #23
Awesome, will definitely be ordering some seeds. thanks!
 
  • #24
The biggest B. rorida decided to make an early flower. Unfortunately, this is as far as it got before the stupid mouse that got into the house chewed off the bud.....
B. rorida Lake Campion by hawken.carlton, on Flickr

On a side note, Mr. mouse is no longer extant and will not be bothering my plants again... :D
 
  • #25
Apparently the size of the pots is not as much of a constraint as others have painted it to be. Both the big B. guehoi are getting ready to flower
B. guehoi Kimberleys by hawken.carlton, on Flickr
 
  • #26
Apparently the size of the pots is not as much of a constraint as others have painted it to be. Both the big B. guehoi are getting ready to flower
B. guehoi Kimberleys by hawken.carlton, on Flickr

Really beautiful! I am going to order a bunch of Seeds and live plants from CzPlants very soon! I am just nervous about sending live plants through the mail and it ending up dead on arrival.
 
  • #27
I wouldn't risk shipping plants of Byblis personally.
 
  • #28
Ok, will get seeds only. :water:

Highjack on: Do you think it's ok to send some of the other CP species (Live plants)? Ping,VFT,Some tropical/subtropical Drosera. Highjack off.
 
  • #29
A little:offtopic:

Only once, in the late 1970's did I attempt to receive live Byblis liniflora plants shipped from southern California, while at the time I was in Memphis, Tennessee. They were purchased from W.I.P., and though it only took a few days, none of the plants survived the trip. Fortunately W.I.P. sent a packet of seed, as insurance, with the plants, and I'm still growing offspring, from those original seed, many plant generations later. I never tried having live Byblis plants shipped, ever again. Perhaps if the plants were growing in vitro, they might do okay. I don't think it's worth the effort, otherwise.

Byblis liniflora is the only species of CP that seems so extremely temperamental when it comes to traveling long distances in the dark. Most other CP seem to perform much better in similar circumstances.
 
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  • #30
I've been holding off on sowing my Byblis seed since I need to move my collection back to California (from Tennessee, nonetheless) and don't want to risk killing off all of them. I'm really surprised that every single plant you had shipped died - were they just dead on arrival, or did they die from shock/root trauma afterward?
 
  • #31
Dead on arrival. It was about a half dozen small, but live plants. They had rotted away to nearly nothing. I had to examine their pot with a magnifying glass, to even discern their remains. In the same shipment were several Drosera and Sarracenia seedlings. The only plants that were damaged, at all, were the Byblis.

The Byblis plants were in their own pot, and they were packaged so as to be nearly undisturbed, physically. I'm sure it was a combination of lack of light and perhaps temperature fluctuations that predisposed the small plants to damping-off. I couldn't be sure, because of the state of their remains, but they looked like they may have been two or three inches high, when still alive.

If I remember correctly, in that shipment were also some Drosophyllum lusitanicum seed, because W.I.P. was concerned that live plants of that species would fare even worse than the Byblis in shipping, and they were not even going to try. I believe they (Bob Hanrahan), had already sufficient experience, and anticipated that outcome.
 
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  • #32
All Byblis tend to be finicky about any sort of root disturbance, so that is probably the cause of why they died off. Drosophyllum suffers the same thing, and there's only one place I know that successfully pulls off shipping them live. Some of the annual Drosera in the indica complex are also similarly a pain in shipping.
 
  • #33
Now, back, closer to the subject:

So far I've only ever grown Byblis liniflora, and I began with those seed I received from W.I.P. back in the 1970's. But I learned to keep them going, not as annuals, but virtually indefinitely, By tip trimming, then potting and rooting those tip cuttings. The parent plants then produce multiple new growth points, making them bushier, and more than half of the tip cuttings root and form new vigorous plants. Meanwhile the tips that succeed, soon resume blooming and produce seed, and soon the parent plants resume blooming, as well. This trimming also helped to keep the plants less straggly and more compact.

The plants really take off when I regularly spritz them with a very dilute balanced fertilizer solution containing trace elements formulated for plants.

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I just discovered a packet of Byblis gigantea seed, among some other CP seed packets. I'm not sure when I acquired them, or from whence they came, but I'm pretty sure I've had them at least twenty years. I plan to finally try the bleach treatment on them, perhaps it will work. I do have Byblis liniflora seed, produced at various times (grown on my own plants, so I can be certain of its age), some of which I had good germination with, when they were more than twenty years old.
 
  • #34
Anyway, hcarlton, it is good to see someone else interested in Byblis. They don't seem to be as common in CP collections as they once were. I enjoy viewing your photos of them.

I once brought a non-CP Solanum pyracanthum plant into my CP grow room. At the time I was not aware that it was heavily infested (on the undersides of its leaves) with whitefly. However, that experience led me to realize that two CP I was growing, at the time, were most effective at dealing with them. Pinguicula gigantea and Byblis liniflora. I later discovered that the Solanum pyracanthum plant "had" been infested with whitefly, only because these two species were suddenly covered in dead trapped whitefly. The Solanum pyracanthum, being the only newcomer, was the first to be checked. Sure enough there were signs that it had recently been infected with whitefly. But now it was clean of them.
 
  • #35
A couple liniflora flowers
B. liniflora by hawken.carlton, on Flickr
And, I was told that small pots don't do the other species too well, however.... well, okay, so I'm not getting tons of blooms this way but I still call this a success
B. guehoi Kimberleys by hawken.carlton, on Flickr
B. guehoi Kimberleys by hawken.carlton, on Flickr

And more blooms are on the way. The 2nd big plant is yet to flower, sadly, but I have pollinated this flower with liniflora pollen, and done the same in reverse to 2 liniflora flowers
 
  • #36
I got seeds from the liniflora x guehoi cross, but nothing in the reverse. However, a second guehoi plant is beginning to flower, so I may be soon producing species seeds!
In the meantime, the two flowers currently open:
B. guehoi Kimberleys by hawken.carlton, on Flickr
 
  • #37
Still waiting on the cross to sprout, but both of by big guehoi plants flowered! Seeds are ripening on the first flowering plant, and the other lost is growth tip (coming back with branches though). Interestingly, the second plant had far fewer ruffles on the petals.
B. guehoi Kimberleys by Hawken Carlton, on Flickr
 
  • #38
The liniflora and guehoi populations dwindled, working on bringing them back, but most promising and currently best growing, if the cross took, is below
B. liniflora x guehoi by Hawken Carlton, on Flickr
 
  • #39
The crap moss took another victim, this time the Byblis hybrid. Now, only Byblis doing decent are these:
B. rorida Lake Campion by Hawken Carlton, on Flickr

I do have a guehoi sprout, working on bringing liniflora back into the collection again, but that moss took a real toll on my collection, as has the need to wash the peat I've got now...
 
  • #40
Gotta start the rorida again (something about that species, just won't get past 4" tall), and B. guehoi is still only one clone, now several growing cuttings, so I need these to start blooming so I can cross it with something again :p
B. liniflora by Hawken Carlton, on Flickr
 
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