Some S. ‘Adrian Slack’ Hybrid Youngsters

Posted on February 4, 2012 | 2 comments

Ah, here’s some more things to look forward to in 2012! Here’s a few young pitchers that I left after the great trimdown. These really do not look like much right now as these were some of the younger non-crispy pitchers I left for some quick snapshots.  I’m posting these as more of an online documentary for myself; something to compare the future photos to when that time comes.

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Sarracenia moorei “Orange Glow” x ‘Adrian Slack’

This seedling from this particular cross is exhibiting some yellowish traits – I *hope* that it carries through maturity, and I also hope that the red lip stays. Some of the other siblings from this batch don’t have this color palate, at least, maybe not yet? Who knows.  At this age, it’s hard to say if those traits will carry through as young plants can still morph on to something different looking.

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S. (leucophylla x oreophila), Karen Oudean Clone x ‘Adrian Slack’

The photo doesn’t look like much right now cuz it’s one of those recent weird off season pitchers that came up outta nowhere… but this cross has produced some very promising and elegant pitchers.  Check out the 9th picture down here, or check this post here.

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S. oreophila x ‘Adrian Slack’

So I didn’t get what I wanted out of this cross.  (I’m hoping, at least, not yet…) Some had a little bit of color, but it wasn’t very colorful overall.  Maybe only a small handful of this cross last year showed some color,  but most were on the bland side.  Some had some good potential in terms of pitcher shape though.  I ran this cross by fellow Sarraceniaphile, Brooks Garcia, and he informed me that at times when crossing with S. oreophila, it can mute the colors of the cross — however the subsequent cross with say, a leucophylla, or leucophylla hybrid can produce some very nicely colored plants.  Jerry Addington also confirmed this as well – that when using some strains of S. oreophila, it can kind of just dampen the colors – especially when S. oreophila is used as a pod parent.  I’ll be optimistic and evaluate this batch for the next couple years hoping that SOMETHING nice comes out of it… Ah, one can always hope, right?

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Sarracenia “Bud Wilkerson” x chelsonii

Posted on February 3, 2012 | 2 comments

Part of the fun of diving into the fray of trimming and cleaning is finding things that I haven’t seen in a while, or at times — didn’t even know about.  There’s so many plants hiding between this and that, and with the seedling babies – heck, I don’t even know what’s going on sometimes. Here’s a couple sibling young plants that my friend Wes Buckner did between Sarracenia “Bud Wilkerson” (a moorei, or a leucophylla / flava Sarracenia hybrid) and a Sarracenia chelsonii (a Sarracenia purpurea/rubra hybrid).  He sent me these seeds about 3 years ago, I think.  You can see the variation between the two and that’s what makes Sarracenia breeding for me so fascinating. You never quite know what you’ll get.  One is producing nice upright veined and ruffled pitchers drawing influence from S. chelsonii. The other plant (that should produce some larger pitchers this coming year, and not as quite as large as it’s sibling yet)  has a little bit more of the moorei influence and what I hope to be a consistent vertical throat splotch. The latter reminds me a little bit of some cat’s eyes…

Sarracenia “Bud Wilkerson” x chelsonii

Sarracenia “Bud Wilkerson” x chelsonii

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Almost done… (trimming)

Posted on February 2, 2012 | 2 comments

It’s been a couple weeks trimming and trimming, and the end is in sight. I am down to the last couple of benches. Here’s just a few final glimpses of the pitchers of old. This wild fray about to get a chop down to make room for the new crop of pitcher goodness.  A shadow of the former things, and a reminder that greater things are to come.  Only a couple benches left before the heavy re-potting and dividing begins. (Phase 2 of the clean up and re-organizing project here….) Yes, growing season is right around the corner… you ready?!

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Pest Control

Posted on February 1, 2012 | 3 comments

godzilla-1Godzilla scaring the pests away. Awesome natural pest control.

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Nasty

Posted on January 31, 2012 | 4 comments

Fungus happens… this is why good Sarracenia hygiene is a must. Proper light, air circulation, water… it’s important. However, even when these things are provided, sometimes fungus still happens.  (And yeah, sometimes it happens for no apparent reason.)  I can understand if the plant was overcrowded and shaded in, surrounded by all this dead foliage, and growing in sub-par conditions… but you know, once in a while it happens to a plant that appeared to be so strong one year, and then the next year — crash n’ burn.  Be sure to inspect your plants, and if you do catch it early enough, ***you can rescue it like this.***

In past conversations with my fellow Sarracenia home-boyee Mike Wang, he mentioned that this is also why good water quality is important.  If the water is high in mineral/salt content, it can burn the roots.  It’s good to check your PPM  (Parts Per Million) now and then. If the roots burn, this gives Botrytis a foothold to do  some gnarly gross damage.  That said though, I’ve had plants growing years with water that’s relatively higher in PPM that what what most others feel comfortable growing in… do whatever works for you is all I can say…

Over the course of last year with all the transition and moving,I wasn’t able to get a chance to inspect everything as much as I wanted to — and sad to say, there were a few casualties. (And this is why it’s a good thing to have a back up system of your plants, extra copies in the collection or even with other growers for insurance purposes…) Here are  a couple of photos of some damage that the nasty-ass Botrytis  fungus can cause. Yuck.  Don’t let this happen to you…

*Dead.*

Once a beautiful Sarracenia — reduced to nasty-ness after a Botrytis attack. Gross.

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Surprise: S. (leucophylla x oreophila) Karen Oudean Clone x purpurea ssp. venosa

Posted on January 27, 2012 | 1 comment

As I go thorough each bench and tray, it’s kind of cool finding things that I forgot about. It’s as if surprises await me as I go through and do my trimming duties.  The other day I was trimming through trays and found a cross I did a few years ago.  This is S. (leucophylla x oreophila), Karen Oudean Clone x purpurea ssp. venosa.


Sarracenia (leucophylla x oreophila) Karen Oudean Clone x purpurea ssp. venosa

It’s been a while since I’ve seen some of these seedlings, but was pleasantly surprised to see how some were turning out.  Most of the pitchers were already going crisp but the horizontal line in the throat was a consistent feature in the other pitchers of this plant. A nice surprise to find, and I am really looking forward to seeing how this plant will be at full maturity. The rhizome is looking a bit swollen, so I hope that I can get some flowers when it comes time…

Oh boy, can’t wait to see what other surprises await me in the trimming fray!

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Sarracenia Seed Stratification Satisfaction

Posted on January 26, 2012 | 4 comments

FINALLY. I got around to getting this done!!!

As you know with all the changes this year, it’s set me back quite a bit on a few things, however I’m glad to finally get around to this project. Stratification! I had a very poor seed count from last year, and I believe this was due to the unusually warm January we had that caused many plants to start to form flower buds early.  Then in February, we had very cold weather, and plenty of hail.  I think that the stress by these weird weather fluctuation affected pollen viability, stigma receptiveness, and just overall seed count production.  Out of all the crosses I did, I only managed to get seeds from half of what I did. And within those crosses, there was a low seed count.

Envelopes (that are not really) full of Sarracenia seeds.  After harvesting this year, I stored the crosses in the fridge.  This helps keep the seed viable.

Left: Seed envelopes and pre-made plant labels.  I wrote the cross of each plant and stuck it in front of the respective seed pouch.

Right: Stratification pouches.  I don’t have the room really to do this the Mother- Nature-Way of laying the seed on the media and having them stratify naturally.  I also didn’t want to mess with damp paper towels (although that works as well!)  So, it’s basically just peat moss and sand.  In the bags are currently a dry mix.  When it comes time to plant, I just dump the mixture onto the potting media in their new pots and will let them grow from there.

Oh, what awesomeness will come from these seeds??  Next I dump the seeds into their stratification pouches.

Here the seeds are mixed with the dry stratification/planting media.  I insert the plant tag as well for proper ID of the cross. I repeat for every seed packet.

So after a while, it gets kinda messy… I just started throwing the bags all over the place.  This is what it looked like as I was going through and getting the seeds into the strat-pouches. At least I kept them in kind of one area!

Sarracenia need damp stratification – so my next step is dropping some water into the mix.  I tried something new this year ( I don’t know if this will make a difference) but I added a little bit of hydrogen peroxide to this water mixture. I’ve heard that it helps inhibit fungus…  figure might as well try it. 🙂

Stratification pack: done!

… and when all done, throw em  in the fridge for 4-6 weeks or longer, then plant!

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