My Pinguicula Journey

[Espinas_Y_Raices]

Hi everyone, I just joined today 04/12/2022
I am from Washington state and love plants of all kinds.
I am a member of a community garden and and grow fruits and veggies but I also work at a plant store and at a garden center and have over 200 plants indoors.

Some time last year I obtained my first Pinguicula and just recently I've becomed super interested in really growing and learning more about them.
I have no idea what variety of ping it is but it did switch from sticky leaves to succulent leaves last fall so I know it's a Mexican variety.
She has been blooming all fall, winter and spring. Started out as one plant and then split to two. When I divided them it once again split itself, this time into 5 heads. I've decided to keep it as a cluster for now.

 

[Espinas_Y_Raices]

Earlier this year when I divided the plant, I also took some leaf cuttings and placed them in moist sphagnum moss in a little cupcake container
Withing weeks I had baby plants growing on the leaves and last week after 3 months I moved the babies and planted them in a different container with more room to grow.

 

[Espinas_Y_Raices]

At the time I was propagating my pinguicula I was also experimenting with pollinating, we had some schlumbergera bridgesii "Thanksgiving cacti" at the shop and I tried my hand at it. Soon after I became obsessed with pollination and I can't help but want to pollinate every flower I see!

Earlier I mentioned my pinguicula had been flowering nonstop for months. I had convinced my boss at the plant shop to bring in some pings for the shop and some of those were beginning to bloom too.
I read up on Pinguicula pollination and watched some videos. Propagating by leaf is fun but I wanted to expand my collection and what better way to do it than to grow from seed right?
I used the pings at work as my tests and when I saw the first seed pod on those plants I decided to take mine in and try it out.

 

[Espinas_Y_Raices]

I don't know what type mine is but her flowers are way bigger than those of the pings at my job.

 

[Espinas_Y_Raices]

Here she is on her way to her pollination date 2, 3 weeks ago.

I decided on P. Emarginata X Elizabethiae as the pollen parent

I didn't take a pic of the plant but I have the flowers on the second pic.

 

[Espinas_Y_Raices]

I ended up pollinating 4 flowers and after about a week the petals fell off and I now have seed pods on the stalks!

Also pictured is her current form, just barely starting to grow sticky carnivorous leaves again.

 

[bluemax]

I wish you success with your ping crossing. I'm not sure what the seed parent to be is but I would guess that it has some P. moranensis in it.

 

[Espinas_Y_Raices]

I wish you success with your ping crossing. I'm not sure what the seed parent to be is but I would guess that it has some P. moranensis in it.

Thank you so much

 

[Espinas_Y_Raices]

Sad news.
Out of the 4 pods that were developed, my cat ate two last week leaving only two on the plant. Recently I noticed the oldest one was changing color to more yellow, the little petals around the pod looked drier and the stalk less firm rhan before. Today I decided to harvest it but unfortunately it was nothing but an empty pod.

This leaves me with only one pod left but thankfully the plant is pushing out one more flower so looks like I'll get to try one last time for now. Hopefully this last pod has seeds in it.

Pictured here is the empty deceiving pod, new flower stalk coming out, and the current seed pod on the plant.

 

[bluemax]

Sorry to hear about your losses. Doing ping crosses is very much a hit and miss situation - but when you succeed all of the effort becomes totally worth it. Keep the faith!