FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Thanks for this!

mouthstofeed wrote:Thanks for this!

Order received.
Your order number is 0051.
I'll PM you shortly with a mailing address for your SASE.
Thank you.

Good growing,
Mike

Received SASE.
Order fulfilled plus bonus. I harvested some fresh seeds from one of my D. capensis "Typical" plants this morning. I enclosed those also.
Return envelope going out in today's mail.
(It got torn when opening the outer envelope. Sorry bout that. I taped it up but wanted to let you know, it was me, not the Post Office who damaged it.)

Good growing,
Mike

wow! two packets of seeds for the price of one! that is fantastic. i can't thank you enough.

welp, they have been received and are in the ground (figuratively). the seeds are as small as dust particles. impossible to tell how many there are. how many plants might i expect in one packet, do you think?

Probably 50 - 200 seeds in each pack. Give it 4 -6 weeks, you could end up with a massive quantity of plants.

Read up on raising seedlings. Germinating seeds is easy, raising them to maturity is a little more work.

Good growing,
Mike

so matt, my seeds have sprouted! you say raising them to maturity is tricky. do you have any tips for not killing them?

mouthstofeed wrote:so matt, my seeds have sprouted! you say raising them to maturity is tricky. do you have any tips for not killing them?

First, do your research on raising CP in general. Next, remember seedlings are tiny and delicate. They are easily damaged by wind, strong rain, or animals. Grow them in a sheltered area. Also, seedlings have no energy in reserve. They die quickly if you forget to water them. They die quickly if they get too hot. Until my seedlings are over a quarter inch diameter, I keep a very very close eye on them.

Good luck with them.

Good growing,
Mike

Shadowtski wrote:

mouthstofeed wrote:so matt, my seeds have sprouted! you say raising them to maturity is tricky. do you have any tips for not killing them?

First, do your research on raising CP in general. Next, remember seedlings are tiny and delicate. They are easily damaged by wind, strong rain, or animals. Grow them in a sheltered area. Also, seedlings have no energy in reserve. They die quickly if you forget to water them. They die quickly if they get too hot. Until my seedlings are over a quarter inch diameter, I keep a very very close eye on them.

Good luck with them.

Good growing,
Mike

I have done a lot of research so far. While there is a great deal on germination, what happens in between germination and adulthood is... strangely missing. It goes like this.

"The sundew seedlings will then develop carnivorous leaves soon after germination, and will then begin the slow process of growing to adulthood. Note that the cotyledons are non-carnivorous. The first true leaves will usually have small carnivorous traps if conditions are favorable. However, these carnivorous leaves may not fully develop (under insufficient lighting, for example). Therefore, the first 4 or more leaves may be non-carnivorous until the seedling can build up enough energy.

After the plants are large enough, it is usually recommended that you "harden" the seedlings, so that they are able to grow in a less-humid environment. Be sure that the acclimation process is gradual- if you do lower the humidity too quickly, it can sometimes do the seedlings more harm than good! You can harden-off your seedlings by gradually ripping more and more holes in the saran covering your seedling container over a period of a few weeks. If humidity is sufficient in your trays (greater than 40%), you can generally skip this gradual process and move them directly to the new tray."

See, that totally skips over the middle part of the process.

Anyway, thanks for alerting me to the danger, and thanks for the tips. It sounds like my germination chamber will be good for the plants for a long while yet.