FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

This year I experimented with growing Sphagnum moss. Ideally, I would use sphagnum moss as a media topping for all my mature and flowering Sarracenia. I got tremendous growth out of my potted Sarracenia this year and plant to use it as a starter culture for my bog gardens this spring. I have been pretty happy with the growth I've seen this season and can't want until I re-pot everything and add sphagnum moss to the bog garden this spring.

At the beginning of summer when first potted (21-April-2012):


And then near the end of the growing season (19-October-2012):


Note: I let the water level start shallow and dry a little bit in July, then in September and October I let the level fill all the way to the top. That seems to be the natural hydro-cycle for ephemeral wetlands in this region. I don't know if this really factors into growth rates.

Here is what the sphagnum looked like this weekend:

Sweet!

I see some pitchers in that last photo.

So are those pots hiding beneath that layer of sphag?

That's awesome, thanks for sharing!

I can't believe it grew THAT much.

parker679 wrote:I see some pitchers in that last photo.

So are those pots hiding beneath that layer of sphag?

I have mixed Sarracenia, mainly rubra and flava, I'll post more this spring (made a frozen winter post in the Pitcher Plant category). Yes, think of those two shots as before (spring) and after (fall), the post are still there. The moss is really jammed in there. There is even live moss in the water around the pots, really thick.

David F wrote:I can't believe it grew THAT much.

It wasn't until I went back and looked at that spring photo when they were freshly potted that it really hit me how much they grew. I'm going to re-pot this spring and try to grow more out of this culture, we'll see how it goes.

Wow!
I've had to start my culture from one strand that came in a CP order, and in less than a month, it has grown into 5 or 6 strands, so I'm not suprised it grew that fast.

once the moss takes it grows very vigorously, I usually add little bits to pots and let it naturally grow around the plants.

I did the same, I added a small amount to my nepenthes pots and in about a month it all tripled in size! I even had to clear some of it out of one of my pots because it was overgrowing a nepenthes!

I originally got into growing some because at work we were trying to get it established in a couple of our exhibits (carnivorous plants and tiger salamander). At first it took in the tiger salamander exhibit under 8 high output T5s, but slowly over time it rotted away; some thought it was getting burned and some thought it was being killed by a fungus (I was thinking more along the lines of light and water quality). Over time in the carnivorous plants exhibit it started growing better is some places that others, usually areas with better water flow. Anyway, after it was proving to be a pain in these exhibit terrariums I decided to try some outdoors (as you see here) planted with and without my Sarracenia. It actually grew much better (as presented here) outdoors and not with Sarracenia. I didn't get the same amount of growth when planted with my Sarracenia.