Tag Archives: Sarracenia

Flies!

Posted on May 11, 2015 | 10 comments

Growing in a greenhouse has some advantages and disadvantages. One thing that I miss about growing outdoors is that my plants don’t feast on bugs as much compared to when I was growing outdoors. Now – I do leave my vents open, and insects do manage to find their way in. So my plants do eat — a little bit. I will be playing around this season with fertilizer as a supplement (like MaxSea…) but in the meantime I wanted to try something else this year. I thought it would be fun to let the plants do what they were meant to do. Catch their own food! A huge special shout out to Scott Creary, Entomologist of IPM Labs (http://ipmlabs.com), as well as Ryan Georgia of Native Exotics (http://nativeexoticsonline.com/) for introducing us. Thanks guys! I had contacted Scott and purchased about 10k fly pupae. Yeah. Ten. Thousand. Fly. Pupae. Yummy! A nice little box arrived and this is what was inside:

10,000 fly pupae. In a beautiful green mesh bag. Brilliant presentation! 🙂

Fly pupae OMG!!!

Fly pupae I just placed the pupae on small trays all around the greenhouse and over the course of the week, they eventually emerged. And eventually got eaten. I only go to the greenhouse a couple times a week, so I wasn’t there to witness the flies emerge. Yes, I did notice more flies in the greenhouse, however I knew plants were doing their job as I would find scenes like the below at a much greater frequency that what I am normally used to seeing.

Flies
First victim that I saw. Resistance is futile.

Flies! Later that week, I noticed early on that the plants were starting to catch prey.
(Reflected as the darker areas in the pitcher base above.)

Flies

…And, the Sarracenia were not the only ones having all the fun! The other carnivores were also having some fun too. More traps triggered on the Dionaeas, a few stuck to the Drosophyllum, and the Drosera were also having fun!

Flies!
Flies!
Flies!

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Tagged drosera, feeding, flies, Sarracenia

Sarracenia oreophila x ‘Adrian Slack’

Posted on May 8, 2015 | 9 comments

Sarracenia oreophila x 'Adrian Slack' Sarracenia oreophila x ‘Adrian Slack’ – one of my crosses from a few years ago. This year I finally got a chance to put each clone in a separate pot to keep track of them easier. I’ll eventually figure out a naming convention, but wanted to share this one for now. More photos to follow of the others later on. This particular plant has a beautiful red throat splotch contrasting against a white pitcher top. Hawt!

9 Comments

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Tagged Adrian Slack, oreophila, Sarracenia

Bog Sink Update

Posted on May 7, 2015 | 9 comments

A couple of years ago, I put together a bog garden using an old sink my uncle was going to throw out. [Here’s the sink from when I first pout it together in 2013.] The sink has filled in quite nicely since then and here’s how it’s doing now. I seriously need to get a tub/shower or maybe even a toilet bog going next. 🙂

Sarracenia Sink Bog sink

Sarracenia Sink Bog sink, flanked with Tillandsias and fern.

Bog Sink Plants Not sure what hybrid I threw in there, but I like the pattern and contrast.

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Tagged Bog, Sarracenia, Sink

Sarracenia ‘Royal Ruby’

Posted on May 4, 2015 | 10 comments

Sarracenia 'Royal Ruby' Her majesty – Sarracenia ‘Royal Ruby‘

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Tagged Phil Faulisi, Royal, Ruby, Sarracenia

Flava Fun!

Posted on May 3, 2015 | 8 comments

Just a few Sarracenia flavas, for fun. Enjoy!

Flava Fray The flava section

Sarracenia flava 'Waccamaw' Sarracenia flava ‘Waccamaw’

Sarracenia flava "Powhatan"
Sarracenia flava “Powhatan”

Sarracenia flava var. autropurpurea

Sarracenia flava var. rubricorpora

Sarracenia flava “Killer”

Sarracenia flava var. ornata - Giant Clone Sarracenia flava var. ornata – tall clone

Sarracenia "Extreme Red Throat"
Sarracenia flava “Extreme Red Throat” – a seed grown plant from Mike Wang, similar markings to S. flava “Killer.”

Sarracenia flava var. rubricorpora “lidless”

Sarracenia flava var. ornata - lidless Sarracenia flava var. ornata “lidless”

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Tagged Autropurpurea, Extreme Red Throat, flava, Killer, lidless, ornata, Powhatan, rubricorpora, Sarracenia, Waccamaw

Project: Clean Up

Posted on May 2, 2015 | 3 comments

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

Seedling mess

Cleaning up seedlings A few of the juveniles freshly potted up!

Watertable The 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!

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Tagged clean up, project, repot, Sarracenia, seedling

Collection Surfing: Day 3 of 3

Posted on April 22, 2015 | 3 comments

The final installment of this trilogy of vignettes takes to the wonderful garden of Martinez. Drew’s collection is beautiful madness, and his space usage (especially in the Nepenthes houses) is very efficient. As an added bonus, the great Sarracenia artist himself, the legend — Phil Faulisi accompanied us on this visit to Drew’s place too! We had a great day simply immersing ourself in botanical bliss. This was one memorable weekend filled with carnivorous plant wonder. I seriously could use more weekends like this.

Drew and Selina, thank you so much for hosting us. Really appreciate you taking time out of your day to give us a tour of your amazing collection! You both are awesome.

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Carnivorous Garden of Drew Martinez – View in fullscreen

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Carnivorous Plant Collection Surfing - 12 Apr 2015 Pitcher plant powwow.

Carnivorous Plant Collection Surfing - 12 Apr 2015 A plethora of Sarracenia flowers.

Carnivorous Plant Collection Surfing - 12 Apr 2015
In that company of Sarracenia flowers, a couple gems stood out. This S. purpurea ssp. venosa var. burkii f. luteola immediately caught my eye. Not just because it was anthocyanin free, but check the flowers out. It’s missing the umbrella shaped style! (See this as a reference of Sarracenia flower parts.) So weird! All the flowers on it were this way. After I pointed it out, Drew called it “Freakshow.” So cool. I love them freaks! This plant originated from a batch of seed grown plants from Chris Gussman. (Great work, Chris!) I recognized the shape and knew straight away it was from Chris since I have one too. 🙂 Mine hasn’t bloomed yet so not sure if this trait is also expressed in the siblings.

Carnivorous Plant Collection Surfing - 12 Apr 2015 Here’s a shot of one of the flowers from that strange luteola…

Carnivorous Plant Collection Surfing - 12 Apr 2015 …and of the other flower. If you see past the petals, there’s no umbrella! Go home, Sarracenia. You are drunk.

Carnivorous Plant Collection Surfing - 12 Apr 2015 Another flower that caught my eye after the strange luteola flower. This is S. lamentations x leucophylla. Notice anything funny about this one? Check the sepals out! (Again, here’s the Sarracenia flower reference photo.) Typically Sarracenia sepals are separated into 5 distinct sepals. This plant has only one fused / continuous sepal. It was consistent on all of the flowers too!