Fred's Carnivorous Plants and other oddities

[fredg]

A newcomer into the middle greenhouse. She's a little different to the Araneus and I've not been unable to identify her as yet.

Now identified as Metellina segmentata

[mark smyth]

When do I collect gemmae and when do I sow them? How do I know which way is up?

How about this for a size difference! 'Mardi Gras' from a grower/nursery and a tiny plant from ebay. £13.50 and £5.00

[fredg]

You collect gemmae  when they're ready, you'll need a little bit of intuition for that ( It's not available on ebay, I looked  ). They'll be in the crown of the plant and you can invert the plant and brush them off ( risky) or as I used to do collect them with tweezers. There's plenty of time before that's necessary though. They're not seed so you plant them ie you lay them on the surface and they'll sort the rest out for themselves.

It's Sarracenia "Mardi Gras" according to the ICPS. The double inverted commas indicate it is not a registered cultivar. The price and size difference of your plants seems appropriate.

[fredg]

It's one of those Autumnal mornings 

[fredg]

Good Morning

Today's specimen is a Stone Spider, Drassodes lapidosus or Drassodes cupreus. She was hiding in a watering can I wanted to use and she tried to take a runner when I started filling it. She's a webless spider and hunts nocturnally.
Once again the wall came in handy for taking photos  .

[David Nicholson]

Fred, your pictures in the last two pots are not showing.

[mark smyth]

I can see them

[fredg]

Thumbnails added so you get 2 for the price of one. Or BOGOF. 

[fredg]

I was looking at the Sultanas again and these big Wasps were feeding well. They're about 50% longer than the common Wasp so are they Hornets?

[mark smyth]

How do I know if my Nepenthes are epiphytic or terrestrial? I have 'Suki', 'Bill Bailey' and 'Lady Luck'. 'Suki' is keeping well above the sphagnum but 'Bill Bailey' is being swamped

If possible I'd like to move them both to a peat based mix

[fredg]

Mark , I have checked the most up to date list of Nepenthes registered cultivars provided by the ICPS and of the 242 listed none of your three are on there so the names should have  double inverted commas to show that.

What I can tell you is :-
Nepenthes "Bill Bailey" = Nepenthes singalana x ventricosa
Nepenthes "Lady Luck" = Nepenthes ampullaria x ventricosa
Nepenthes "Suki" = Nepenthes rafflessiana (deep burgundy form) x  sibuyanensis (bright orange form)

As to them requiring lowland, highland, intermediate, ultra lowland or ultra highland temperatures and humidity I'll leave that to you.
I do not grow Nepenthes.

[mark smyth]

For now they site on a south west windowsill

[fredg]

I was looking at the Sultanas again and these big Wasps were feeding well. They're about 50% longer than the common Wasp so are they Hornets?

This one is checking out as Dolichovespula media, the Median Wasp. The size is reportedly 18-22 mm as opposed to the 12-18 mm for Vespula vulgaris, the Common Wasp.
It says the "back to front" 7s at either side of the thorax when viewed from above is an indicator. The colour is variable from more black to more red.

[fredg]

Linyphia triangularis, the Common Hammock-Weaver or European Sheetweb Spider. This one sharing a hanging basket with half a dozen or so Garden spiders. Not a large spider by any means.

[fredg]

Regarding my electric slug protection (please note that it's not the slugs I'm protecting), things have moved on. I now have a single circuit, a double circuit and a 4 pot ring circuit using the standard copper tape and the 9v batteries.
Today I cut off a section of the branded electric slug fence and did the business on that, individual pots can then easily be moved in and out of the protected area. It needs a flat surface or pinning to the earth, I'll be sitting it in a very large black saucer ( 25p Wilco winter clearance) I noted  that the circuit is made up of aluminium tape so a quick check on eBay revealed that a purpose made 33m x 2.5cm roll of aluminium tape with conductive adhesive can be obtained for £2.99 ( or best offer) POST FREE which is considerably cheaper than using copper tape.

The digital multimeter indicates that all my current circuits (pun intended) are operative at 9v.

Damage to plants protected by these circuits to date = Zero.