A few more pics

I'll have him e-mail you. I know he wanted the amp because he'll have a decent sized terrarium by then. The others he will have to look up one by one. Your last cutting you sent him was bigger than whole plants he has purchased from nurseries.

Good, I have found it much easier to start with larger plants, and even better if they are from cuttings. Small plants from TC or seed seem to take forever to get bigger. Im sure he already has a few that I listed but he will be welcome to any that he would like. As soon as the weather breaks in the spring I should be able to ship.

His plants, upon receipt, have all been anywhere from about 2" across to the largest being maybe 4" across which was yours. The little ones were always so darn tiny I was surprised any made it. My Dad bought him a few Neps last year for his birthday and those came from Black Jungle. The plants were healthy when we received them but there was something weird about them that I can't quite put my finger on. I can't believe my Dad paid their prices for 2" and 2.5" plants for a kid. Turns out my Dad's ladyfriend found them on line (my Dad doesn't read or write English well and certainly doesn't use one of those new fangled computer things) and Arlene actually selected the Neps for my son. I guess she has a few friends at the Chicago Botanic Garden who volunteer with her and they suggested Black Jungle. Now mind you their plants were healthy, just very petite. I still can't put my finger on what is up with their plants but their prices are certainly way too high for 2-2.5" Nep. I went to their site and noticed that quite a few of their plants were from seed. Interestingly enough, most of the other Neps we have are from TC. Now you've got me thinking if there isn't something to what you have observed about slow starts from seed.

I definatly find that neps in my growing conditions take FOREVER to get growing when from seed, and even from TC if recieved while still quite small. I always try to get plants that have crested the 4'' mark, for it seems that is when they start to grow noticable, atleast for me. Even better is receiving cuttings for they grow the fastest.

Wolf

Changing course again over to providing dormancy for CPs in my garage, here's a photo I just took. My only regrets are that I couldn't get in another level over to the left. There's space to go up another tier. This is one area in my garage where I have plants stashed. I have plants in two other areas. Nice bright natural light and temps that never are allowed to sink below freezing. This is why I have not been using fungicides.

Wow very uniform, I dont think I have 2 pots that are the same!

I know you will think I am anal but; I am also overwintering pots for the Forest Preserve (black), pots for my girlfriend (forest green), and pots for the school (terra cotta). That particular area looks all uniform because I started stashing my plants first so they all ended up together before I expanded out on to a large 3.5 x 8' folding table as well as to other shelving units in front of other windows. Then other people started bringing their plants over. I already shook my finger at Dodecatheon and told her she crossed over in the pot colors and was responsible for figuring out which plants were hers and which plants belonged to the school. For shame... she dared use pots that were terra cotta colored! Bad dodecatheon! I've got hundreds of plants out there and had to devise a system to know who owned which plants or I would have driven myself nuts. Did I mention I have plants in window wells too! I've got super deep window wells that are jumbo sized and wanted to experiment a little bit . If the plants in the window wells come out of dormancy as well as the plants in the garage, I've done got me expansion areas so I can get me some more plants! Yee ha! Each window well is capable of holding at least 10 10" pots and even more if I'm stashing 8" or 6" pots in them. I have 6 window wells. The possibilities may be endless!

Back to the pot colors, I prefer a mix of different styles and colors. Looks more haphazard and would certainly be more affordable but the reality is that I'd end up with a "which plant belongs to who" fiasco over here.

I wouldn't mind getting a large amount of pots matching or unmatching in preparation for spring. I have always bought the pots that I use for sarrs and vfts at Meijers and the such. I purchase my nep pots online so most of them match.

You must be quite the dormancy master if you have people giving you there plants to overwinter!

No, I'm not the dormancy master. Although most do have attached garages around here, most people never added supplemental heat to their garages. An attached garage with no supplemental heat will sooner or later freeze in this area. Detached garages, such as what Dodecatheon has, can drop to the outer air temps in no time flat which means anything out in them ends up a frozen brickette. We added auxillary heat to our garages because we often pulled the cars out of them to set up work stations for kids to work on woodworking projects. It's not uncommon for us to have 10 adults and 10 kids out there making bird houses or who knows what. We don't have an actual woodworking shop so we make do with the space we have by setting up construction horses to support work areas. If it is too cold, the kids had to work with gloves on and that was no fun and sort of dangerous because you can't get good grips on your tools. The adults were standing around with teeth chattering which was very distracting. We maintain the heat out there at 38 but can crank it to a toasty 70 if we want. So, I'm no dormancy master but I am the only one who has a heated garage with lots of natural light. Come to think of it, all of my garage doors have windows in them too.

Thought I would add some more recent pics.

First my most recent pitcher of N. coccinea

Second the N. truncata that I posted awhile back after about of month of coloring up.

And a closeup of the peristome.

Lovely!