Tag Archives: Catesbaei

Morning Mayhem

Mornings. Oh, what better way to start the day than with plants?! Here’s a few photos from the other morning for your viewing enjoyment. Enjoy!

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Greenhouse Morning
Sarracenias

Greenhouse MorningSarracenia youngsters.

Sarracenia flava var. ornata - Bulloch Co., GASarracenia flava var. ornata “Black Veins”- Bulloch Co, GA
Those veins will get very dark as the season progresses.

Sarracenia alata - veinlessSarracenia alata – veinless form

Sarracenia 'Abandoned Hope'Sarracenia ‘Abandoned Hope’

Sarracenia readii x moorei selectSarracenia readii x moorei – Select Clone
Cross by Phil Faulisi

Sarracenia seedling tableSarracenia seedlings 

S. 'Alucard' - "Prince of Darkness"Sarracenia ‘Alucard’ – “Prince of Darkness”
A select form of S. ‘Alucard’, created by Phil Faulisi
This select clone gets pretty big. I’ve seen them get over 36″!
This trap is close to 33″ (I know… I busted the yard stick.)

Sarracenia "Yellow Jacket"Sarracenia “Yellow Jacket”

Sarracenia "Legacy"Sarracenia “Legacy”

Sarracenia 'Reptilian Rose'Sarracenia ‘Reptilian Rose’

Sarracenia flava "Powhatan"Sarracenia flava “Powhatan” starting to color up.

Sarracenia 'Adrian Slack'
Sarracenia ‘Adrian Slack’

And So It Begins… Again.

2012 has been off to an exciting start.  With the majority of the transition behind me, I’ve had time to focus on the next big task: cleaning and re-organizing. Garden moves are not as easy as I would like them to be, and I anticipate a full season before I can really settle in and get things organized at the new place.

The greenhouse provides it’s own set of advantages as well as challenges that I hope to negotiate and document here.  Honestly, I really do prefer growing Sarracenia outdoors; however – I’m thankful that at least the garden has a space.

Here’s a few photos from the past few days…


Overgrown seedling tray.  Those seedlings are about a year old, and need to be trimmed, cleaned, then re-potted…


A tub of old pitchers.  The blade is coming to slice em down soon…


Lots of trimming and re-potting ahead…  and no, I really still can’t find stuff I want to find…

One of those nasty pots full of overgrown seedlings… This cross is a Sarracenia (leucophylla x oreophila) x catebaei – Sumatra, FL


Same pot as above – Sarracenia (leucophylla x oreophila) x catebaei – Sumatra, FL post cut.   After trimming all these pots, the next step is thinning/shifting the seedlings out to let them grow out for evaluation.


Filllin’ the can up with dead pitchers full of bug guts… delicious.

And if you’re wondering why I haven’t used the katana blade – well, because of the move, I’m having trouble locating it at the moment. But not to worry, it will be in effect once found!


Looking cleaner! I managed to get through only a couple of benches thus far. And that’s only trimming.  I still have quite a few more benches to finish with trimming — then it’s re-potting time! YEAH!


Another angle.  Notice I left some of the phyllodia (those are the flat non-carnivorous leaves that aid the plant in photosynthesis), as well as a couple of pitchers that were still pretty good looking.

Speaking of pitchers… check out a few of these nifty pitchers that are still holding pretty well late in the season!


Recent addition – a couple of *bizarre beasts*, but yet kind of fun and interesting… this is Sarracenia “Smurf”!  From what I was told, it  originated as a tissue culture mutant of S. purpurea ssp. venosa, and later found at Carniflora.  Special thanks to Kevin for these awkwardly insane and strangely weird beasts!  (Uh, yeah… I do have a thing for weird pitcher shapes too…)


Sarracenia purpurea “Smurf”


Sarracenia purpurea “Smurf” — I guess there’s something about those weird pointy hood hook things that I kinda like!


As I was cleaning and trimming – I found some more pots of my cross of S. ‘Golden Red Jubilee’ x purpurea ssp. purpurea.  These were growing in partially shaded conditions. Plants that I’ve distributed to others in the past year have shown some nice veins when they were able to be grown out in full blazing sun. Now that I have more space, I can’t wait to see what these things will do!


Sarracenia minor var. okefenokeensis x “Green Monster” – This is a collaboration cross between an idea that sprang up during a conversation between Jerry Addington and I.  The mother plant supplied by Mike Wang, and pollen from the S. “Green Monster” I had.  What you see is step 1 in an antho free project we have going on… good times!


Sarracenia minor var. okefenokeensis x “Green Monster”

Rebuilding
Sarracenia courtii x ‘Adrian Slack’ – a select clone from a cross I did a couple years ago – late season pitcher.

There’s still a lot of work left to do. It’s unending, but it’s “work” that I find fun.  As I remove the dead foliage, there are faint glimmers of hope that appear.  Sometimes I’ll see the beginnings of a new pitcher, or perhaps a slight bulge at the growpoint on certain plants indicating that flowers are just around the corner…

Flying Nun Baby

Back in January of 2008, I got some seed from fellow Sarracenia obsessed grower and Sarracenia pusher, Brooks Garcia. (Yeah, he be one of those dudes that got me addicted.)

He crossed Sarracenia “Flying Nun”* x flava var. rubricorpora.  All of seedlings are turning out pretty nice.  This one has some open pitchers now so just wanted to share a couple photos of the progress of this particular “Flying Nun”* baby. Check it out, yo!

Catesbaei "Flying Nun" x flava var. rubricorpora
[Sarracenia “Flying Nun”* x flava v. rubricorpora]

Catesbaei "Flying Nun" x flava var. rubricorpora
[Sarracenia “Flying Nun”* x flava v. rubricorpora]

*The Sarracenia “Flying Nun” used in this cross is not the catesbaei, S. “Flying Nun” as photographed in the link.  The link shows a plant that was named by Phil Faulisi, as Brooks Garcia noted in the comments.

The Bengal Tiger, in Flower

Hello all! I hope everyone is having a good week thus far!

Lots of flowering action beginning – a few flowers, but more buds will be opening soon.  It’s going to be a busy soon with a flurry of pollination activity.  While we’re on the subject of flowers and such, I wanted to share this one photo I snapped this weekend of Sarracenia catesbaei “Bengal Tiger” in flower.  I received this plant as a small division a few years ago, and it’s finally flowering for me!

Sarracenia catesbaei "Bengal Tiger"
[Sarracenia catesbaei, “Bengal Tiger” flower, March 2011]

Ah, the gentle and subtle hue of this flower… so elegant and debonair.  Don’t let it fool you though; the name “Bengal Tiger” was coined by fellow grower, Brooks Garcia, not for the flower but rather for the intense, vivid, and almost violent looking veined pattern strewn across the pitchers.

I don’t have a recent photo on hand at the moment; but here’s one that I was able to pull up from April, 2009.  Here it’s exhibiting it’s flaring hood with the bold veins running all throughout.  I’ll be sure to get a photo this year as soon as it produces some nice pitchers.


[Sarracenia catesbaei “Bengal Tiger”]

A brief history about this plant:  I received this division from fellow Sarracenia addict, Brooks Garcia. This plant was actually originated from a batch of seedlings from fellow friend and grower, Dominic Diaz, who acquired the batch of seedlings from a UC Davis conservatory sale. The pot was labeled “S. purpurea venosa burkii x flava oranata”, and it is believed that the seeds were donated to the conservatory. There were about 50 seedlings crammed into a small four inch pot, and Dominic disbursed them in several trades. (Ain’t genetics awesome? You never know what you’ll get outta a batch o’ seedlings…) Most of the plants from that pot share the same characteristic catesbaei form, with shades of copper, red, and burgundy. The hood is particularly large due to the purpurea subspecies involved in this cross.

Anyway, after some time, a division of one of those seedlings from way back when found its way to me and this is what you see before you here in these photos.  Now that it’s flowering, I hope to create some interesting hybrids that also exhibit a similar beautiful veined pattern with that flaring hood.  And perhaps a similar story will unfold as I disburse seeds and seedlings to others in the future as well!

Stickin' out…

When breeding, I’ve found that one will encounter a lot of genetic variations. Variants in all Shapes. Size. Colors. Shape. Smell. Feel. Maybe taste.

While doing some sorting in the yard, one of the seedlings really stuck out apart from its siblings.  S. catesbaei “Flying Nun” x “Red Blush” (cross by Brooks Garcia) is the cross pictured below, 2 years old from seed. You can see that in the sea of red, one plant is coming up yellowish.  The one in the center and the yellowish one on the upper right hand third of the photo are pitchers of the same seedling.  The rest of the group is red.  Ah genetics… interesting stuff indeed.

 

S. Catesbaei "Flying Nun" x "Red Blush"[Sarracenia catesbaei “Flying Nun” x “Red Blush”]