Tag Archives: clean up

Project: Clean Up

Greetings to all of you wonderful people out there! Things in the Asylum are moving along quite quickly. I did manage to repot and clean up a majority of the adult plants this year. That was an ominous undertaking but glad to report that was completed. Because of this, I did not work on too many crosses this year. Honestly around 10-15 or so crosses is all I did as my efforts were concentrated on cleaning up. One ongoing project I an working on this year is simply cleaning and repotting the juvenile plants.

Here’s a few shots of the various tables. Yeah, they are a friggin’ mess. I know. Not everything is pretty in The Asylum. In this mess, however,  there are a few neat little gems to be found.

Sarracenia Seedlings

Sarracenia Seedlings

Sarracenia Seedlings

Seedling mess

Cleaning up seedlingsA few of the juveniles freshly potted up!

WatertableThe table that is slowly filling up back to front with the the new babies. There is a lot to look forward to in the coming seasons!

January Update

Greetings all! I hope you’ve had a great start to the new year so far. My wish is that you, your loved ones and your plants will find happiness and health all throughout this coming year. Things are quite busy on this end with winter clean up. All this in preparation for the growth that will soon follow. The Sarracenia in The Asylum are all brown and crispy and pot-by-pot, table-by-table… slowly they are getting their shave on. Winter fun, yes? I’m about to burn them all down… 🙂

Yet, with all the dead foliage that surrounds me, I’m still growing things. A few plants (both carnivorous and non-carnivorous) around the greenhouse are doing well. I have a few plants in my office cubicle that keep me company whilst I’m at the office. And YES – I’m still tinkering around with the Nepenthes. Remember this last year? Ugh. Sheeeyaaatttt….  I hope to do better this year. And so far, so good. That greenhouse-within-a-greenhouse (woooah, that’s so botanically Inception-y) is doing wonders for them. Man, those things are so fascinating and beautiful. They give me something to grow while the rest of my botanical world is not as green. I still have the tank going on that I referenced at the end of this post. I’ll update you with a few photos in my next entry, so stay tuned for that. In the mean time, here’s a handful of frames of what’s been going on in The Asylum.

Clean UpThis is my winter-ish-zen moment. Yeaaa, gettin’ this mo-fo cleaned up.  For the most part, this is my view – carting out dead pitchers, weeds, and old media wheelbarrow load by wheelbarrow load. Oh joy, oh rapture! It’s such a cleansing experience!

30 Dec 2014
Thought this was pretty cool, a few of the S. alata “Maroon Throat” pitchers still looking quite nifty!

30 Dec 2014Another angle of those S. alata “Maronon Throat” pitchers.

30 Dec 2014
S. alata “Red Mustache” with a couple of pitchers. Don’t mind that mess in the background.

30 Dec 2014The flytraps now all spiffy and ready for the growing season.

Sarracenia 'Reptilian Rose' x (flava var. rubricorpora x leucophylla) clone 8Ah, you know. a small pitcher of S. ‘Reptilian Rose’ x (flava var. rubricorpora x leucophylla) – Clone 8 just hangin’ out in that mess of dead pitchers…

Sarracenia leucophylla "Purple Lips"S. leucophylla “Purple (kinky) Lips” and her burning-out phyllodia tips. The traps normally do not form that way, it just happened that this one opened weird for some reason and ended up looking… kinky.

This year promises to be a pretty good one! There’s a few things in the works, and some neat crosses that will be sown soon. And YES, I hope to have some plants/rhizomes available in the shop once I’m able to get a little more organized. (Right now, there’s still a few seeds available… check it out) I’ll post some photos from the Nepenthes house as well as photos from the grow tank in the next post. In the mean time, I’m off to the next table… Woohoo!

Clean upOff to the next table…

Hello 2014

Hope everyone’s been having a good 2014 so far! Two weeks in there hasn’t been much plant action on this end – other than the massive cleaning and re-organizing efforts that are currently underway in The Asylum. Here’s a few snapshots of how my 2014 is going so far.

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January
The Asylum. The left half of the house has been trimmed. I’ve taken The Dome down on the right and I’m currently finishing up construction of 3 more water tables.

Trimmed Tables
Looking fresh and clean!

Dead Pitchers
The wreckage of dead foliage. I still have a lot of work ahead!

Sarracenia formosa AF
Burnt out heads of anthocyanin-free formosa.

Darlingtonia californica - Coos Co., OR
Special thanks to Karen Oudean for sending over some brilliant specimens of Darlingtonia californica – Coos Co., OR

Drosera binata var. dichitoma
Drosera binata var. dichitoma awake and unfurling new traps.

Drosera regia
Some Drosera regia cleaned and potted up.

Sarracenia bud!
What is this madness?! Is that… a BUD?!

Sarracenia "Legacy"
Sarracenia “Legacy” – new pitcher forming.

 

Almost done… (trimming)

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?!

Time to Slice

I’ve been doing some re-organizing, and a little bit of clean up lately.  A lot of the pitchers from earlier this year have turned crispy, so I’m choppin’ em off.  ESPECIALLY the plants that I moved outside from the greenhouse. (UGH, what a mess.)  Anyway, removing dead foliage helps with your basic plant hygiene.  Removing those dead pitchers allows for better light and air circulation, which in turn, leads to healthier plants.  When plants get crowded and you got all that dead tissue shizznits going on all up-in-that mofo, well – uh — it can open up the door to some Sarracenia funk.  It *can* get nasty!  A little bit each day I’m doing some clean up.  And, come Winter, I’ll probably be slicing everything back down to the rhizome! Oh, good times indeed!

Slice
Dead pitchers, beware.

Time to Clean Up…

“Clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere! Clean up clean up, everybody do their share!”

‘Tis the season — the plants are now pretty much dormant, even here in mild Cali.  Many of my other friends and fellow growers have their plants locked up in ice, burred under snow, or just frozen. There’s still a couple pitchers that look OK – but for the most part, it’s a sea of crispy brown pitchers.

Clean Up
[Time for that annual MOW DOWN!]

 

On a side note: What I did in prior years was actually light some pitchers on fire. Yes. I am just slightly pyro. Lighting things on fire and blowing things up is pretty fun.  Especially when saying “fire, fire, fire, eh heh, heh heh” in a Beavis and Butthead kind of way. (Just kidding about the Beavis and Butthead thing… ) Not that I believed that there was any benefit to the plant or anything, – like I said, I’m just slightly pyro. In the wild though, the burns are beneficial to the plants, controlling the surrounding weed growth that compete with the plants.

 

fire[Eh heh, heh, heh … fire, fire, FIRE! Cornhoolioooo!]

So yeah, I got my work cut out for me this winter season. Lots of pitcher mowin’ down to do.  All good though, love doing this as it prepares the plants for spring and give me yet another excuse to be out in the garden during the winter. 🙂

Gotta clean this 'ish up. Good times![Clean up! WHOOOHOOOO!]

And if you haven’t done so all ready, check out the last post to enter and win some Sarracenia seedlings!