It has been a long hot summer following a miserably cold and record breaking winter. My plants are struggling, and I have lost a lot. Mostly too difficult to keep the plants wet enough and the weeds under control.
I did receive an amazing shipment of plants from cobraplants.com and I picked up a few nice ones locally from another grower.
Daina's Delight always comes through for me.
In the spring my native S. catesbei was just sending up flowers. Plant in blue pot on right.
How it looks today. The pot fell over, and I lost the flowers, however the leaves have recovered beautifully. This plant is lovely and an easy grower. It is a native hybrid in Florida.
Here's a mini bog. It has S. "Scarlet Belle" and S. "Judith Hindle" and D. filiformis filiformis with a bunch of Trigger plants. This plant is in the middle in the picture two above. It is certainly a bit ragged, but coming along.
My thoroughly overgrown bog. I have weeded it, but I hate to remove all the ferns and bog violets. The bog violets are native to FL, but propagate like bunnies. I think the ferns will need to be removed, and I have pulled out about 50 violets.
I have found a few S. purpurea, but see no signs of the D. filiformis. I am hoping with more light and space it will come back. I found one VFT buried under the weeds, but there were more.
Here's an S. purpurea uncovered and now surrounded by bog violets.
Can you spot the Nepenthes in the orange tree? I will be unpotting them all and covering the holes in the pots. I can't keep enough water in the pots for healthy growth. There are four plants and three species in this picture. All are hybrids.
One of my small temperate bogs. There's VFT, a few Sarracenia, D. filiformic Tracyi, D. capillaris, D. burmanni, . . . there's also a stray D. binata.
Another view. Better to see D. filiformis. Love this plant.
Close-up of the chaos. I am hoping that when the heat lets up, some of the plants will come back up. Domancy in FL also seems to be triggered by heat and not enough water.
My best growing, unusual Nepenthes "Red Leopard". I find this amazing because it is a highland which are very hard for me to grow, but maybe because it is a hybrid it isn't as taxing. The top one is "Red Leopard". The bottom is a cutting of ? It is growing well though. In the background is a N. ventricosa. Can you see the temp on the termometer? In the shade on September 25. :) Add 90% humidity. :)
My first CP. I bought it about 6 years ago at a fleamarket. It is a N. ventrata. The beginning of my CP obsession. It is my plant that used to have vines 8' long. It froze this year, and I lost it down to stubs. I am so happy and grateful that it has been growing so well. I had it sitting on the ground under the orange tree. I brought it in when my back yard flooded. My porch doesn't get enough light.
Nice photos!
Those are my older plants. I hope to post some of my new guys today. My D. paradoxa is flowing. What a cool plant. Tiny pink blooms. I also have a U. jonesi blooming. It looks likeU. subulata on steroids.
starsplitter- Nice plants but i see you don't have any of your bogs with water in them, don't you keep them moist?
What mix are you using on your neps? because i use a peat,sand, perlite mix as it hold water longer than a bark mix. Can even add sphagnum moss to hold more water but i find it grows to quick and takes over so i don't use it much.
I had all the plants in trays for years, but the trays always dried out. Florida is basically a desert that gets monsoon rains in the summer. So this year I thought I would try undrained containers. My best Sarracenia are in the blue pot and it is undrained. I think because the chance of drying out is so common here, having undrained containers works better. I have had more success this summer than any previous summer. I water them three times a week when we don't have rain. Even with rain, I water, because we dry out so quickly.
For the Nepenthes, I try a lot of mixes. I use peat and perlite for most of my plants, and then top dress with Sphagnum moss. Unfortunately, I can't find live spagnum moss. Sometimes I get it in pots and I do everything I can to preserve. It is so wonderful for seedlines and keeping the plants wet. During the winter I have to bring the Nepenthes in and when I water them they drip on the floor. I am putting them in undrained containers for the winter this year to try to get them through the winter better. I wish I had a green house. SigH!
I was thinking of having my sarras out of trays in the winter because i lost alot of the lower growing red ones due to rot(they must rot the easiest). I end up having to keep tipping out some of the water in my trays as it rains and fills them up. But i need the water up to there in summer.
I never sit my neps in water i just keep them moist, there in my greenhouse with my orchids and the few i have inside i let drain on my sink when i water them. Don't keep them too wet in undrained pots they can rot.
How many neps do you have?
Funny you say that about sphagnum moss i don't use it much for my cp's as it keeps growing and takes over the pot. I use it to grow back roots on orchids and to start nep cuttings. I mainly use peat moss/sand and perlite.
Love your catesbei, i have one to but alittle different, ill have to find a pic...
The catesbei is a native wild plant. A friend got permission to remove it legally after wild pigs had destroyed the growing area. She was knee/thigh deep in mud, righting plants that had been broken and tossed. She did with as many plants as she could find in the muck.
My Neps just can't stay wet enough. I have lost a few more of my outdoor plants -- N. miranda, almost impossible to kill and they are suffering. I need to repot them and hang them on my porch for some TLC. We are too hot and dry. In the winter we are dry and warm. I can't keep enough water in them. I will still have drainage, but I have got to find a way to keep water in them. I wouldn't even consider keeping them in water if I lived anywhere except here and maybe the Sahara. Florida is a desert with moonsoon summer rains. But we have deluge rains, and 1/2 an hour later things are bone dry. I can't keep Sphagnum wet enough to grow. It dies pretty quickly here. I am always looking for ways to keep things wet. Right now my garden is just baking. Terrible. I need to find a way to keep my plants indoors this year. I lost so many last year from the cold and dryness. Sigh!
Starsplitter,
I get long, very hot weather here and almost no rain for many months. I think FL is wetter and I keep sphagnum alive all summer. Now believe me it gets crunchy but not dead. I have thick layers with all the Sarracenias.
C
We are really wet in the summer, and bone dry during the winter but with high humidity. It is very hard on the plants. I always tell people that our temps are not high -- usually 93-94 are the peak temps, but with our humidity we hit a heat index of 110-115. We rain in the late afternoons, so during the day everything bakes. Then torential rain in the evening.
We have heat waves where it is over a 100 (sometimes 106!) for months on end with no rain. I always figured FL was better due to the humidity but maybe not. My plants need a check every day in summer and that can be a problem if I go on vacation. The VFT's hate the long dry spells but the Sarracenias don't seem to mind quite as much. I suppose anywhere that isn't there natural climate can cause them problems.
C
I used to live in NC and it was also hot and dry. I think that wild plants have better root systems and do much better with the strangeness of weather. I have seen one S. minor in the wild at the Okeefanokee Swamp, and it was very hot (over 100 degrees), humid and very dry. The ground was very dry. The plant looked bedraggled like mine, and there was a torential rain as I left. I'll look for pictures of it, and post it. It was in an open pine wood forest.
