FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Thank you for taking the time of posting all of these photos of your beautiful plants, Reaper. That Ceph of yours is really giving me an itch to try to raise one of my own!

2nd EDITION of REAPERS Garden Est Spring 2012
Panoramic View As we have been experiencing great weather in the past month, it can only get better from here as all my CPs and grasses within the bog are forming and settling nicely. Come August/September this bog venture should be in full flight with blooming Summer growth !

Special THANKS to those of you with constructive advise as my thoughts on an improved CP bog garden were looming during the latter stages of my previous bog bowl. Not to mention those of you with similar setups prior to mine as I am sure I have stumbled across your postings with exciting visuals off of these forums and abroad that originally inspired me on this venture.

Reaper's Garden looks beautiful! Thanks so much Gothic Traps for posting the photos.

ENJOY !

Sarracenia 'Judith Hindle' Green Dragon Upright Cup Trap Drosera capensis' Drosophyllum lusitanicum Mature Cephalotus with developing stalk. Drosera anglica with Scarlet Bristle and Noir The Competition

I've just benchmarked my 2nd anniversary on FlyTrapCare since the start of this blogging post... ! Below are a few photos of REAPERS Garden in FULL FLIGHT during the peek of its growth among some of my other carnivorous jems. ENJOY... as dormancy lurks around the corner !
My 1 year old FTC Dionaea babies... Gotchya!!! B52 My Mimosa pudica enjoying a shadey corner on my roof deck.

Love them! Especially the reaper garden!

Still the coolest setup I've seen! Even better than the bowl. So do all of the pitchers, grass, flytraps, sundews in the same pot like the same soil, sunlight, water, temperature, etc? Also is that a watering tube in the corner? What do you have at the bottom to create a reservoir? Thanks for the updates!

xr280xr wrote:Still the coolest setup I've seen! Even better than the bowl. So do all of the pitchers, grass, flytraps, sundews in the same pot like the same soil, sunlight, water, temperature, etc? Also is that a watering tube in the corner? What do you have at the bottom to create a reservoir? Thanks for the updates!

Thanks for the kind comments, xr280xr ! First of all, all the carnivorous plants in REAPERS Garden are temperate plants... including the sundews. As for the variations of mosses and grasses that you see, I grabbed the mosses from a moutain and creek side from some local parks. I washed the roots up, transferred them into their own pots with the same media that they are currently in now so that they can adapt and then over time transferred them into the bog. The same goes for the grasses. So far, so good as everything is growing and evolving as planned.

Now, regarding the watering tube of the bog garden itself... the photo below will explain the key aspect of what makes this garden work with these type of plants (something that I greatly improved in theory from the original bog bowl itself in a practical sense). The tub itself has a reservoir at about 2 inches deep that uses two cloth straps as wicks to soak up the water up into the soil. I've added about a 1 inch layer of sphagnum moss to act as an additional wick the will essentially soak up in keeping the soil moist much longer during those longer heat spells throughout the Summer. From the sphagnum moss to the the top of current soil line, the depth of the soil is about 9 1/2 inches. The soil consists of 60% sphagnum peat moss, 30% (salt free) play sand and 10% pumis (replacing the previously used perlite in my earlier mixes). Perlite works well, as pumis is more of a natural ingredient that works the same. The advantage I find is that pumis stays well imbedded into the soil as perlite over time begins to float to the top after rain showers which over time makes the soil look unnatural for the setting I'm looking for.

This photo was taken earlier this year on March 20, 2012 when this bog garden was put into action.

Oh that's nice! I like the crossbar to keep it from bulging too. I've thought about using an Earthbox (similar to this) for flytraps in the past but the big ones are too big and the small ones are too shallow. Thanks for your thorough answer.

Beautiful plants and very interesting setup, Gothic!

All I can say is---WOW! Your setup never ceases to amaze! That mimosa is lovin' it! I had one but I missed a day of watering last summer and it died.

It's that time of year to start preparing for the Fall/Winter season. My temprate plants have been put into a more protective state up on the roof deck as my year-round plants are back in front of my south facing living room window sill with a slightly different setup than last year.

My newly modified mini greenhouse with styrofoam insulation has been errected to a 3 tier to accomodate all of my temperate plants with REAPERS Garden in front. There is a roof overhang in this area to protect this setup from the heavier rains. Extra precautions are set in place when heavier weather elements such as winds, frost and odd deep freezes are to occur. REAPERS Garden with an added tomato cage in the background with some bamboo stakes place around. This will assist in holding up the burlap and vented plastic with a bungie cord tying it down around the tub during those heavier weather elements. Most of the time it will be exposed to get the best possible dormancy... though monitored closely. Here are my latest additiond from Best Carnivorous Plants - 6 baby Fused Tooth and 1 Z11. My Drosophyllum lusitanicum grown from Best Carnivorous Plants seed. My 1 year old baby Dionaeas grown from FlyTrapCare seed with some cape sundews. I'm experimenting with these on how they react to the Fall/Winter season outdoors. These were grown from seed in late Spring. I've got more seeds of this species than I know what to do with. My baby 'Cobra' Darlingtonias grown from FlyTrapCare seed. My various Dionaea cultivars as seen in other photos throughout Summer. Couldn't help capture the beautiful colour of my Sarracenia leucophylla 'Tarnok'. A few close up photos of REAPERS Garden... Here's a birds eye view of my indoor setup with my the mimosa pudicas in the forground. Though these plants are year-round plants, they do appreciate seasons change regarding light exposure as this is how they benefit the rest they require. I currently have the growlights on a timer set at a 12 hour light exposure (7AM-7PM). The lights assist with good exposure especially on those dark cloudy days. With the window always slightly ajar, these plants get the night time temperature drops required in their range. As seen in the next set of photos, they look to be benefiting. Here are some photos of my Nepenthes singalana and heliamphora minor going through a growth spert ! It's been a hit and miss scenario growing these thoughout Summer, but they've managed to hang in there and adapt. They really seem to like their newly adopted environment now which is great to see. We'll see how they progress in the coming months. My 2 baby Cephalotus' that has divided into a 3rd is also going through a massive growth spurt ! This transformation into maturity is really something to watch! My mature Cephalotus looking great as usual.

Your plants are so beutafull i just want to rech through the scren and grab them.

Beautiful plants. You're very creative and do a great job designing your planters.