Tag Archives: September

September


Thank you September, I’ll see you next year.

September is a month that I’m quite partial to. Perhaps it’s because of the change in season, in weather, and also in pace as summer slowly fades into autumn. My affinity for September could also stem from the fact that this is my birthday month after all.

And of course, gotta love the plants during September! Many of the S. leucophylla and S. leucophylla-influenced plants are still putting on a nice display at this time of the year. This is the final show before the plants head off into winter sleep. I have also done a lot of Sarracenia seed harvesting this month – with only a few more pods left for harvest. I truly enjoy harvest time. This is when those breeding ideas which I’ve had at the start of the season finally come to fruition. Those ideas physically manifest themselves as tiny (yet so very monumental) seeds within the Sarracenia seed pod.

September now draws to a close. I look ahead and quietly devise a plan of attack for the impending onslaught of activity that will ensue once dormancy commences. That is when I do a lot of work with the plants: repotting, dividing, cleaning… I know, it sounds somewhat masochistic, but it’s what I love to do. For now, I will sit back and simply enjoy this calm before the storm.

For your viewing pleasure, I put this short September video together with a few clips from inside the greenhouse. (By the way, not all plants in the video are carnivorous. If you know anything about me, it’s that I enjoy all sorts of botanical radness. I wanted to include a little bit of that here.) Enjoy!

Nepenthes Update

Earlier this month, Nepenthes master Paul Barden sent me some Nepenthes to try out in The Dome. Now mind you, I don’t have much Nepenthes experience, and with the few Nepenthes that I do have, I just kinda leave alone to do whatever they see fit. Anyway, one of the things that Paul is letting me try my hand at is growing Nepenthes from cuttings! SO RAD! I’m excited to report that a few weeks later, I see the cuttings showing some signs of life! In the photo to the left, you can see the garbled mess of Nepenthes that I have. A few in the photo are pots of cuttings that I chopped up from a N. fusca hybrid vine from Paul. When I checked the pots, one of the cuttings just went all crispy and didn’t do much. It’s the pot in front with that sorry mess of brown foliage – I tossed that one. But as far as the rest of them, I’m seeing positive signs of growth. Awesome!

The cuttings are in a 50/50 mix of long fiber sphagnum moss and perlite. Conditions in the dome are humid and cool. High during the day  are in the mid 70’s, and then it dips to 50 during the evening. These are conditions that highlander Nepenthes like. I also have a sprinkler system set up to go off once every hour only during daylight for 2 seconds just to keep it cooler, and humid. Now I don’t know if I should change this frequency but so far, so good.

Something that Paul mentioned to me that another experienced grower told him: Nepenthes don’t live in their roots the way other plants do. In fact, in the wild, many species abandon their terrestrial root system once they have grown advanced vines into the tree canopies, where they become epiphytes. N. truncata and N. veitchii typically do this, and I suspect most species are capable of it, since they need to have a “contingency plan” for times when climbing vines get damaged and cut off from the earthbound roots.

Dude. This really helped me to kinda digest and conceptualize their growth habits. Now, I know I won’t fully understand until I probably get a few years of experience behind me to work and play with this genus, but so far, that really helped me to go in the right direction. I’m all new to this but am having fun so far!

Paul, thanks again! I am looking forward to the awesomeness that your Geinhouse 2.0 has in store! 

Nepenthes fusca hybrid cuttingNew growth looking promising for this piece of vine! 

Nepenthes fusca hybrid cuttingOn many of the cuttings, a little node/growpoint thing started to appear! If you look close, you can see a small spur type thing forming. I think this is a good sign! YEAH!

Nepenthes fusca hybrid cuttingTendril that I left on one of the leaves now getting nice and twisted!

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”

9-1-11 Photos

Just a few photos from the first day of September, 2011.  I was just randomly shooting about in the yard.  Not all are Sarracenia. Not all are carnivorous… Enjoy. 🙂

September Opening

Why, hello September, nice to see you again…

September is here… a new month and a new season opening up before us.   A few plants will start to send up their last pitchers of the season before heading off to slumber.  As the calendar page turns, it signals that there is imminent change in the air.  Another shift in seasons is about to begin…

Sarracenia 'Wilkerson's Red' x 'Leah Wilkerson'
Sarracenia ‘Wilkersons Red’ x ‘Leah Wilkerson’ – new pitcher opening
Cross by Brooks Garcia