I was given an S. Oreophila by a very nice person. It pitchered and pitchered and pitchered, and was quite a handsome plant. In July the pitchers started dying back, which I understand is normal, and phylodia came up.
Since mid to late August or so, the phylodia has died back, too. there appear to be a couple of offshoots to the side of the main plant that still have their phylodia, but those are browning a little, too. It is getting cool here.
Is this plant ill? I have it in a mix of 60/40 spaghnum peat to sand. I top water, distilled water or rain water only, it was in full sun up until it got too brutally hot, then I moved it to about 70% full sun. I have it back in ful sun again.
Any suggestions? I can't stand the thought of losing this plant.
S. Oreophila question
Your first mistake was top watering. S. oreophila are very susceptable to rot and are typically found growing in drier regions. They should be watered by the tray method only. I would stop all top watering and let the plant dry out a bit. At the time they start losing their pitchers and forming phylodia the soil should be kept just damp. This species likes lots of air at its roots. If the main crown is soft to the touch you have crown rot. Remove the side shoots and dust with a fungicide. Repot and keep your fingers crossed. If the rhizome is very firm to the touch just let it be. It should form new growth in the spring. If you end up losing the plant let me know and I'll reserve one for you from my collection. I have tons of these. You can rest assured that you will not be without Sarracenia oreophila.
Cheers
Eeeek.... I have been top watering ALL of my Sarrs. I haven't had this problem with any of my Oreos....yet. Are there any other Sarrs that shouldn't be top watered?
Should my medium for oreo have perlite added to it in addition to the Canadian Sphagnum Peat and coarse sand? I'm repotting everything in fresh medium next year so I could easily do this.
What fungicide is recommended to dust with? My crowns are not soft to the touch. My phylodia is still nice and green and I see on the beginnings of natural browning occurring but I'm not messing with this since I have been top watering for ever.
If indeed the crown of the mother plant has rotted, when I (cut? Pull?) off the side shoots, should I pot them up in straight LFS and put them in the fridge for dormancy? Or pot them up in peat/spaghnum and leave them out for a bit longer?
Thanks for your help, Philcula!
Lauren - If it aint broke don't fix it. Sounds like you're doing ok with top watering but in general you should water by tray method. Regardless....your plants sound like they're doing ok so I wouldn't change anything. I like to use powdered sulphur as my choice for fungicides. Not too much though. Your soil mix sounds fine. If your plants are growing well then continue with what you have been using.
Dode...- I would remove the side shoots with as much soil still intact.It's not always a good idea to bare root Sarracenia this time of year. Let the soil ball dry out a bit and plant them in a mix that is very airy before placing in dormancy. Pure long fiber sphagnum is fine. If you have had success in the past by using the fridge dormancy method then continue to do so but keep the plants barely moist. Do not put them in plastic bags. I find Sarracenia tolerate dormancy much better if they can receive light and air during the winter.
If other members have had success using the fridge dormancy method let's hear about it. Hope this can help you a little bit more.
Phil
I don't want to top water oreos anymore with what you wrote. I was serious, I love my oreos and don't want to be messing with them. I'll start watering from the trays. I'll get some powdered sulfur to have on hand. The sulfur is benign enough for my liking and since I was watering from the top forever, I need to have it here just in case.
For what it's worth. The phlylodia are browning up nice and slow starting at the tips and moving toward the crown. All looks well so far. I am touchy about all of my rubra and oreo. Those mean the most to me.
Lauren, I have a whole bag of garden sulphur here that you are welcome to have half of. I used to use it on my black hollyhocks, as they are so prone to rust it's not funny. Since I have decided to go native, I am letting them die off, so I have a whole dang bag of garden sulphur.
This is my first year of growing Sarrs, so I was going to go with covered window-well dormancy for just about everything. I have window wells that are 2 feet deep that I am going to put my more common and/or native sarrs in, and fill the window well with shredded maple leaves, then put the cover on loosely, so they will still get air circulation. I do have an S. Minor that I have not potted up yet, and I am thinking about giving it fridge dormancy, since it seems too late to pot it up and put it outside.
The oreophila and rubras will be spending their winter in Lauren's garage.
I went out and checked the crown on my Oreo, and it is not mushy, no foul odor, either. I emptied its water tray.
Since I have been working with regular plants for years and years, I have always wondered how you can keep a plants roots constantly wet, and not get root rot. Even this summer, hot and dry as it was, I'd let my water trays get dry for a few hours before I'd re-fill them.
Hi Dodecatheon, would you set aside a small baggie of the sulphur for me. Thanks, one less thing for me to have to remember to pick up.
Is there anyone else out there overwintering in my garage? Speak now or forever hold your peace!
Equil,
No problem. The sulphur is yours. What I can't believe is the sheer number of CP'ers who are willing to use Capstan as a fungicide. It's dangerous, and I want my DNA to stay in a double helix.
Years ago, I bought some sweet corn seed. It had the enhanced SE gene,and was prone to rot in wet and/or cold soils. It had been pre-treated with Capstan, and the seed package advised that you should handle the seed with rubber gloves. And a face mask might not be a bad idea, also. GAK!
Dode, Captan scares the heck out of me too. I don't even want it near my home. Thanks for setting aside the sulpher for me, I really appreciate it.
Lauren did you say that the phylodia on your oreophila are beginning to brown from the top and moving down towards the crown? If so this is not good. The phylodia are supposed to remain green and intact throughout the winter. They are what carry the plant through dormancy. Sarracenia which produce phylodia usually experience a somewhat milder winter than the norm and these non-carnivorous leaves act as photosynthesizers. I would watch your plant carefully if you are already losing the phylodia on your plant. I'm hoping I just misunderstood what you had said.
I typically lose my phylodia in the spring as the new pitchers are coming up. Let me know.
Oh and BTW....can I use a 20x20 section of your garage for a few of my trays as well? hee hee...a few he says LOL!
I'll take a few photos and post them and then you decide and tell me what to do. The same thing happened last year. Some of the phylodia browned up and new green phylodia emerged. I give up, this weather has been so darn screwy this year and last year that plants are out of sync for lack of a better word but I don't want anything to happen to any of my oreos so I'll be all ears. You tell me to jump and I'll ask how high. Seriously, I don't want anything to happen to the oreos.
2Ft
LOL!
2Ft? Well, that soared over the top of my head with wings. Must be a guy thing?
"Oh and BTW....can I use a 20x20 section of your garage for a few of my trays as well?" Gosh philcula, I encourage you to use a 20x20 section of my garage. Seriously, please do.
CP distribution party at my house early May!
I call first dibs!
Lauren...let me explain: You said to Philcula "tell me to jump, and I'll ask, how high"
Wolf said "2 ft"
In other words, you have to jump 2 feet high. Got it? LOL!
I once jumped 2 ft. Not during the days when I was a gymnast, but one day when I was weeding a flower bed and an alligator lizard clamped down on my finger! It was truly a Kodak moment! I may have even given new rise to the term..."scream like a little girl"! LOL!
After you screamed like a little girl did you look around and make sure no one saw you!
Spiders make me scream like a little girl.....and I was once a little girl and I didn't scream like that.
Wolf- I ran to my garage mumbling..."oh my god I can't believe i just did that". Now I wear gloves when I go sticking my hands around the garden. What's most embarassing is that it didn't really hurt. What made me freak was seeing this angry little creature clenched down on my finger breathing and heaving in and out. I spazzed. I didn't expect to pull my hand out of the weeds and bring a lizard back attached to it.
Dode...I love spiders. The bigger the better. I love them all over my yard. I have those really big Argiope orb weavers in a few shrubs and they're really fun to watch. I've let them walk up my arms a few times. They're big, but they're harmless.
Um, thanks for the explanation Dode. I'm not exactly the brightest crayon in the box at times but by gosh by golly, I think I got the 2' reference. I did take photos of the phylodia but need to download them.
I have never been weeding and come up with anything attached to a body part. I think if that happened I'd be doing a lot more than just screaming like a girl and I can say with certainty that I wouldn't particularly care who saw the spectacle.
I like spiders myself. When we find them in the house we scoop them up and set them outside. Two weekends ago I found a particularly plump one that had spun an absolutely marvelous web that connected the basketball hoop to an adjacent pin oak. The span on that web was impressive. Some person (who will remain unnamed) was not impressed with my find. It was a huge spider that had a body the size of a 3/4" marble, possibly a little bit larger. I've never seen one that round and bulbuous around here before.
Time for me to see if I can get my flesh loaf 2' off the ground. It will be tough, but I think I can manage.
Come on Lauren don't kid us, the only way you are getting 2' off the ground is with a stool!
Stools aren't even a foot off the ground. I was thinking more along the lines of a step ladder. No mention was made of anything but height so I suppose it doesn't matter if I jump up or down as long as I jump. Jumping down is more within my skill set. I'm big, I'm bad, I'm old.... but I'm not afraid of spiders!
Hey philcula, move to the Midwest and you won't have any lizard problems when you're weeding.
I don't know if that is a good idea. We may end up with a philicicle, he was gotten used to those Cali winters.
I had those Argiopes all over my front yard this year, too. And they were all over my little prairie. What I did was mark off their locations with surveying flags, so I wouldn't run into them by accident.
And now they're all dead. DEAD, DEAD, DEAD! aaaaaaaaaaaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Philicicle....LOL! That's pretty good Wolf. And you're quite right. I AM used to these California winters....so mild....so......Sarracenia dormancy condusive!! (rub, rub)
And those poor spiders....now that they're dead Dode I should send you some of our scorpions to replace them. Wouldn't that be a sweet gesture? Sweet...SWEET, SWEET, SWEET! AHHHHHHHH HA HA HA HA HA...urp! (xcuze me). Too much air intake!
Spiders I may not be afraid of but I certainly have a healthy respect for scorpions. Oh how I love the midwest. We don't even have any poisonous snakes of consequence around here and the most poisonous spider around here is the recluse. Oh, life up here is just absolutely mahvelous dahling. No lizards to clamp on to one's finger and make pee run down one's leg and no scorpions to crawl into one's garden clogs.... gee what else DON'T we have out here???
Well we have mountain lions, bob cats, wild boar, coyote, giant centipedes, tarantulas, hobo spiders, black widows, pepsis wasps. Any of those in your neck of the woods?
No, we certainly don't have most of what you listed off. They have some wolves a few hundred miles north of here but wolves avoid people pretty well. We have had a few reported bob cat sightings but nothing much more than reports I'm afraid. Coyotes we have in abundance because of all the stray and feral cats but the large predators are all gone.
Except for me!
People who haven't been drinking have seen a couple of mountain lions around here.
At Independence Grove?
Wolf - LOL!
Yeah, Independence Grove and one other place, which I forget.
I'm thinking somebody may have been smoking something. They have been monitoring all the ponds and lakes since those sightings to try to pick up tracks and nothing so far. It would be nice if there were a few out there but my hopes have dwindled.
Oh, I think they're here...I wear pepper spray now when I go hiking, so at least I will be a spicy treat. Scorpions don't bother me. Spiders sure do.
Awww shoot! I took the photos of some of the oreo phylodia a while ago and totally forgot to add them to this thread so here goes-
Pot #2
another pot
