Fred's Carnivorous Plants and other oddities

[fredg]

Some random photos from the Sarracenia lagoons.

[Maggi Young]

Some random photos from the Sarracenia lagoons.

Fabulous! Not hard to see where the sci-fi movie makers get their ideas from, is it? !!

[fredg]

In the Disa world Alice and the twins are doing fine.

[Maggi Young]

My word, these bright Disa colours do me good - very cheering!

[fredg]

A flutter of Stylidium caespitosum.

[brianw]

I have grown a number of carnivorous over the last 30 years or so. Darlingtonia, Sarracenia, Heliamphora, Pinguicula, Drosera etc. always using rain-water. Originally all frost free, but pushing some a bit more recently. At the Chelsea FS, i.e. May, plants of course always look their best with large healthy trumpets, often with flowers but not always. In my frost free greenhouse the Sarracenia flower well in the spring but trumpets tend to get a bit tatty late in the year and don't really regrow for me until after spring flowering, so are at their best in a month or so's time, well after flowering. Are the Chelsea "spring" displays not natural as regards timing, even under glass? (not unusual of course) Darlingtonia I have had mixed success outside and had to rescue it after 3 years before I lost it. It was rampant inside years ago. Sarracenia flava loses all its top growth outside, and is just getting going again, Sarracenia leucophylla I have only grown frost free.

[fredg]

I tried growing outdoors many years ago and decided very quickly that in the UK the season is too short. The plants also tend to get somewhat raggy. We just don't have the same climate as the Southern States and our sunlight is about the same as southern Alaska.
Frost free is unnecessary for many including Sarracenia and Darlingtonia. All my greenhouses are unheated. Of late I've been getting winter lows of -2 to-3°C which if fine for everything, including Disa even my Mesembs are happy. The only worrying time I had was during the long cold winters 2009-11 (O°F or -18°C the lowest I recorded). Even then I lost very few.

As for Chelsea, the plants will be further forward when they're grown in large glasshouses anyway. Being commercial premises they're also sited for maximum light and growth, unlike we plebs who have to stick the plants in the best available spot of the garden that comes with the house.

BTW I remove glass panels from the doors in spring and replace them with wire mesh panels. This gives good airflow and allows insects to enter, a bonus being they keep the Blackbirds away from any Sphagnum Moss.  Roof vents are open all year round.

[fredg]

To go with the current drought here, a few seedling Lithops.

Some of the plants from a single pot I bought very cheaply online earlier this year. There's some promising ones here.









A tray of  L. dorotheae, these are from seed I sowed a couple of years ago late in the season. Covid messed up the international mail.

[fredg]

My latest visitor. This one only cost me two seedling Lithops and two Delosperma cuttings.



Three humane traps set with bread and Aldi Peanut Butter.

[fredg]

My Euphorbia flanaganii (?) is in flower again. The essence of cow byre it exudes is something a little different but not entirely off putting. Just as well it's in a greenhouse and not on the windowsill though.

[fredg]

My first Conophytum flower of the year.

Conophytum albiflorum



It's not half dead that's just the old dried skins of last year's leaves that have not been removed.

For scale, that's a 6cm pot. It's not huge