Tag Archives: Pitcher Plant

Oh, So THAT’s What You’ve Been Up To…

So I finally got “The Dome” constructed  (a few photos in this post) – the area that will house the Nepenthes, and some other plants — and so far so good. What I didn’t mention to you was that from the time I moved greenhouses, I just kept all the Nepenthes in a large cement mixing bin and kinda just let them hang out in some random corner of the greenhouse. They were doing their own thing this whole time though and when I moved them to “The Dome” (for lack of a better name at the moment), I had a few pleasant pitcher surprises. See, they were pretty crowded and there was so much stuff just going on in the tub that I didn’t really care to pay attention. Kinda cool cuz when it came time to move em, I was pleasantly surprised with some of my findings. Here’s a few photos of what they’ve been up without me really knowing. Interesting stuff! As the collection grows, I’ll update you with more photos. Enjoy!

Nepenthes spectabilisNepenthes spectabilis

Nepenthes spectabilisNepenthes spectabilis

Nepenthes densiflora x truncataNepenthes densiflora x truncata

Nepenthes hybridSome random Nepenthes hybrid – no idea what it is.

A Few September Shots

Howdy! Just a few shots from around the greenhouse… enjoy!

Nepenthes jamban
Nepenthes jamban

Pinguicula medusina
Pinguicula medusina

Dionaea muscipula
Dionaea muscipula

Drosera binata var. mutifida
Drosera binata var. multifida

Sarracenia (leucophylla x oreophila) x 'Adrian Slack'
Sarracenia (leucophylla x oreophila) x ‘Adrian Slack’ – select clone

Sarracenia ((rubra x oreophila) x flava v. rugelii) x 'Adrian Slack'
Sarracenia ((rubra x oreophila) x flava var. rugelii) x ‘Adrian Slack’

Sarracenia 'Leah Wilkerson' x 'Adrian Slack'
Sarracenia ‘Leah Wilkerson’ x ‘Adrian Slack’

Sarracenia "Pink Eye"Sarracenia “Pink Eye”

11/11/11

11/11/11.  11 – My favorite number!  In celebration of today’s eleven-ness, here are 11 photos from this month. Not all carnivorous, but here’s a little glimpse of how November is coming along.  Most of the Sarracenia are dormant, however there are still a few nice pitchers hanging around.

And yes,  I am writing you from a (borrowed) computer!  My hard drive, as you’ve probably read in an earlier post, crashed.  The good news is that I was able to recover all the data and I’ll be working on getting up and running on my own workstation in the coming weeks.  Good times indeed.

Without further delay, here’s a few photos from my garden of sweet November goodness.

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Brighamia insignis
Brighamia insignis

Seasons End
Dahlia: Season’s ending.

Sarracenia courtii AF x 'Green Monster'
Sarracenia courtii AF x “Green Monster”

Sarracenia courtii AF x 'Green Monster'
Sarracenia courtii AF x “Green Monster”

Nepenthes jamban
Nepenthes jamban

Dionaea muscipula
Dionaea muscipula

Sarracenia leucophylla, TAHBWG clones
Sarracenia leucophylla – TAHBWG clone

Bromeliad
Bromeliad

Sarracenia (leucophylla x oreophila) x 'Adrian Slack'
Sarracenia (leucophylla x oreophila) Oudean Clone x ‘Adrian Slack’

Sarracenia courtii x 'Adrian Slack'
Sarracenia courtii x ‘Adrian Slack’

Sarracenia minor var. okefenokeensis x "Green Monster"Sarracenia minor var. okefenokeensis x “Green Monster”

Windows

At work we will soon be doing a system upgrade to Windows 7…  I’m not quite too sure what to think of it as I’ve never been on 7.   Oh well, like I really have a choice, right? From what I hear it’s pretty cool.

Anyway, there are some plants that utilize the windows system (for trapping) as well – fascinating stuff!  The areoles (or windows, light patches) provide a false sense of escape for the prey.  After entering the pitcher, the victim thinks it can escape  it’s doom by flying or climbing towards the light.  Frantic – it tries to break free… only to be exausted by it’s futile efforts and eventually succumbs to the plant’s power.  Ah shizznit bro, alt+control+delete won’t save it from this windows system.  So after work yesterday, I was just hangin’ out in the garden and decided to take a few photos of some of the plants that employ the windows system.  Enjoy!

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 Sarracenia minor var. okefenokeensis
Sarracenia minor var. okefenokeensis

Sarracenia psittacina "golfballensis" x 'Judith Hindle'
Sarracenia psittacina “Golfballensis” x ‘Judith Hindle’
A cross by Brooks Garcia that I grew out from seed.

Sarracenia psittacina x minor
Sarracenia psittacina x minor

Sarracenia minor var. okefenokeensis hybrid
Sarracenia minor var. okefenokeensis hybrid
Cross by Brooks Garcia I grew out from seed.

Sarracenia minor var. okefenokeensis hybrid
Sarracenia minor var. okefenokeensis hybrid
Cross by Brooks Garcia I grew out from seed.

Sarracenia minor var. okefenokeensis hybrid
Sarracenia minor var. okefenokeensis hybrid
Cross by Brooks Garcia I grew out from seed.

Sarracenia minor var. okefenokeensis x 'Golden-Red Jubilee'
Sarracenia minor var. okefenokeensis x ‘Golden-Red Jubilee’
Cross by Brooks Garcia I grew out from seed.

Sarracenia minor var. okefenokeensis x "Green Monster"
Sarracenia minor var. okefenokeensis x “Green Monster”
A collaboration hybrid I did with Miggity-Money Mizzike Wang.
My S. “Green Monster” was flowering that year and Mike was rad enough to lend me a flowering S. minor var. okefenokeensis. The seedlings from this cross are AF recessive and I am looking to use them as a base for further AF hybrids.

Sarracenia psittacina AF clone
Sarracenia psittacina, AF (Anthocyanin Free) clone

Darlingtonia californicaDarlingtonia californica
OK, this isn’t a Sarracenia, however it’s a damn fine California native carnivore that uses the windows system.  Dotted all throughout it’s Epcot center like hood, you can find the windows that provide that false sense of escape.
Freekin’ awesome, yo.

Hybrid Update: S. courtii x “Green Monster”, AF Clone

Happy Friday everyone!  I was out relaxing a bit in the garden when I got home, and just wanted to share with y’all how this cross was doing.  Again, it was a cross I did back in 09, and now I’m starting to see the work start to pay off, 2 years later! Be sure to check this post out so you can see how far these babies have come along.

And again, just to show you, here are the two parents:

[Meet the parents]

[Left: S. courtii, AF | Right: S. “Green Monster”. (S. excellens, AF)]

What’s funny is that the the two “select” seedlings that I set aside back then, are about the same size (or now even smaller) than some of the other seedlings I have growing in that tub now.  Goes to show you, you never really know what you’ll get when breeding and growing from seed —  and what seedlings will spring up as late starters. Or I should say, late jumpers.

I’m really liking the seedlings with the clean polka dotish action on the pitchers. Finally seeing the fruition of my labor is exciting and keeps me going in this obsession.  I’m still fairly new at breeding – can’t wait to see some of the other stuff cookin’ grow up!

Sarracenia courtii AF x "Green Monster"[S. courtii AF x “Green Monster” –  August 12, 2011]

Dark Petals


[Dark Petals]

It has been a relatively cool year over here. The plants in my Sarracenia pit are a bit thrown off, but I guess stuff happens. I mean… dude, it’s June. And we still get some light rain, and some cold. Global warming in effect, I guess. Strange!  Anyway, some plants outdoors are laggin’ and are finally throwing out their floral awesomeness. Other plants have been long done and are in seed mode now…

One of the later plants that threw some interesting petals in the midst of the weather madness was this unknown hybrid thing.  It has lecuophylla in it, judging from the pitchers. What really drew me to this one was the dark sheen / blackish-glow of the petals.  Rad stuff going on in Sarracenia-ville!

Germination

In  the spirit of all things new and pertaining to growth and expansion, I’d like to share a little bit of my recent expansion process.  Now, I know I’ve been talking a lot about seeds, seedlings, expansion, growth, and all that kinda stuff — but just bear with me.   The past couple weeks have really been quite a transition for me, so I guess some of that is rubbing off on these recent posts.

I’m talking about all these flippin’ crosses that are now starting to germinate somewhere in my back yard. 120+ different crosses now starting. The Sarracenia are spreading from one end of my yard to the other. Hah! 🙂

Back in February I wrote about my seed packing project and getting the seeds I harvested into cold stratification. Now I’m showing you how I get them out and get them started.

One thing I didn’t do back then was make labels… so that’s what I did first. I wrote all the crosses down for that particular seed batch on the envelope I had the seeds stored in.   That won’t do for potted plants, so I had to get some label action going on.

2011 Seed Expansion

So, guess what I did? As I was going through all the crosses, I wrote down all the crosses on a label and paired up with said same cross on envelope. Easier said than done.   ESPECIALLY with the complex crosses.

2011 Seed Expansion

I do this just to be organized. I am sure to stick the label in each pot that the particular cross is going into.   After all, ya gotta know what is in each pot one way or another, right?

I began to fill pots up with media to plant the seeds in. What I do is prepare the mix using peat/sand and fill each pot that I will be using for germination up to the top like in the photo below.

2011 Seed Expansion

I then pull the seed batch out of the respective envelope.   Be sure to check out what was going on in February as I go over how I get things in the bag. It’s basically the way I was doing cold stratification as my space is limited.

Inside that envelope are the seeds, and damp peat/sand mix that’s been in the fridge for a while.  As you can see, I had the cross labeled on the little envelope and the bag fit perfectly inside.  This cross in the example below is an S. ‘Alucard’ x leucophylla, anthocyanin free.  The progeny of this cross will not be AF, statistically speaking; however when these seedlings are of flowering maturity and I cross with another anthocyanin free plant – the resulting offspring should partially be anthocyanin free.  Genetics, always interesting, yes?

2011 Seed Expansion

To make it easy to unload, I split open the seam of the bag along one side, exposing the media + seed mix.

2011 Seed Expansion

I then flip it over and the whole thing falls into the pot very easily, and cleanly.

2011 Seed Expansion

I spread it around a bit, pat it down, then I insert the tag that has the proper ID.

2011 Seed Expansion

…and then repeat for 120 times.

2011 Seed Expansion

As you can see in the photo above, I am using two large mixing tubs as a place to keep the freshly sown seeds in the pots. I fill the black mixing tub with about 1/2 inch of water. There’s another small container with a few more pots outside of this shot — but just wanted to show you a small photo so y’all get the gist of what the heck I was doing.

A friend of mine suggested to use trichoderma to prevent fungus problems. It’s a beneficial fungus that fights the bad fungus. Fight fire with fire, and fungi with fungi. So that’s what I did.

I ordered tablets from http://www.growmorerice.com. No, this is NOT a paid ad on my blog. I’m just lettin’ y’all know where I got this stuff, and how this will turn out with the seeds/seedlings. It’s my first time trying this so this is totally an experiment for me. I’ll continue to document my progress here. I actually have been using this stuff on my Sarracenia starting only a few months ago, and so far so good!  I haven’t had any major rot issues either. Maybe one or two plants, but that’s a lot less than what I would normally be seeing.

2011 Seed Expansion

So in that envelope is a tablet you drop into the water, and after a few minutes, it’s all mixed up for ya.  I dropped the stuff into the sprayer tank, gave it some time, and let it dissolve.

2011 Seed Expansion

I’ve sprayed this mixture at the base of my mature/adult plants this year with no bad side effects.  Let’s see how the seeds/seedlings react and if it really does help with rooting/fungus protection.

2011 Seed Expansion

Below is another shot of the “germination chamber” with all the seeds freshly sown.

2011 Seed Expansion

Next, I added a few support posts. Basically some tubes inserted into slots on the makeshift table, and I held together with left over bonsai wire. Yeah, ghetto. I know.

Expand 2011
Since I am *not* starting these seeds in a terrarium or a greenhouse like I normally would, I made my own germination chamber outdoors.  Since I am doing all this outdoors, and I’ll have to protect the seeds from things like rain, wind, and other critters that could dig up the seeds and move them around. That would be pretty tragic.

After I get the support posts up, I cover the entire thing with two layers of thick plastic that I obtained at my local hardware store.  The additional air layer in between the two sheets serves as insulation.  Then to secure the whole thing, I use bungee cords. I also used a couple bricks to weigh down the plastic.

It isn’t greenhouse plastic and this stuff will eventually break down due to the suns UV rays.  It’s good for about an entire season. Before it starts to break down, I’ll recycle it and if need be, throw another type of protective covering on it later on.

Expand 2011

It actually started to rain the day I finished this project up, and I’m glad I was able to get the plastic on or else I would of ended up with those seeds all over the place.  Below is a shot of the germination chamber.  As you’ve read in the last couple of posts, it is working and the seeds are slowly starting to germinate.

2011 Seed Expansion

Another Sarracenia generation and new era of botanical expansion over here. I can’t wait to see what some of these will look like in the next few years.  But for now, I’ll sit back and enjoy the journey as it unfolds. Out of those few seeds, I hope will come some freekin’ awesome stuff!