FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Grey wrote:This is a natural thing the stalks will do if they aren't pollinated, though it looks like it happened pretty quickly. Did the plant already have the stalks when you bought it? If so, it could be that the stalks were old (the flowers will come off quite easily as the stalk ages) and are simply dying off.

Hi Grey, that explanation is relieving for me that the plant is not dying. I thought the flower were dying as a sign of stress from repotting. The flowers are already fully bloomed when I acquired this 4 pings as 1 big plant. You could be right about not pollinated before hand.

Ahhh I see. It sounds like the stalks are just old. The leaf growth on your pings intrigues me, not sure why they are wrinkled, but otherwise the plants themselves look pretty good, so I wouldn't worry. But if you do have any further concerns please feel free to let us know.

Hi Grey, When I got the pot, the seller told me he left the plant alone without water, probably didn't water it for a month. I guess that's why the leaves look like that.

I've left plants alone for quite a while without water, too, and haven't had the leaf growth be like that - could be a number of things, though. It may even be natural, considering the time of year, but I don't really know. I'm sure it'll flourish in your care, regardless.

I've check with the seller and he has immediate responds. He was not familiar with Pings. This plant he sold me, was in very low humidity area and he suspects that is the reason for it. I'll leave it alone to see how it goes. Perhaps a few leaf pulling to see how the new one looks like.

Thanks Grey for helping out here.

I've been checking my ceph seeds from time to time, the media is getting horrible, they seeds were sitting on LFS topped with live sphagnum, and algae still managed to grow and live sphagnum is slowly dying, perhaps rotting. I think sphagnum is not suitable in my setup as algae takes over the top and sometimes invite pest and decay.

I've decided to transfer all the Ceph seeds to peat base mix with no sphagnum. Picking up the seeds from sphagnum is like looking for needles in hay... I was able to find 80% of the seeds!

2 containers vaguely showing the algae sphagnum getting slimy too.

The story of Nepenthes cutting I had permission to take from the Construction site very near to Canberra Park. They are all N. Gracilis as far as I know. But there seems to be 2 color variety.

Green


Red


Side by side



When I was at the construction site, I was very surprised to find Nep growing on our soil, which should have a great amount of minerals. I remembered when I was walking around there, the soil is water log, perhaps from the current rainy season. The soil is sandy on the top layer , below that is all red clay. Every step is soft and sank at least 1 foot deep into the ground.

For my soil mix. I observed from expert Nep growers in my country and here's what I am going to use. 1 part of each except Peat moss which I added 2 part.
Volcanic Sand, Pine bark, Perlite, Coconut chips/fibre/dust, River sand, Peat moss.




I experiment with another soil of 100% Perlite, As suggested by Cindy, one of our local nep grower from terraforum. I hope they all root in a month to 2.



I follow the cutting method from our another local Nep growing expert.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut4GH8xvBtY[/youtube]

Pin this into my thread for Darlingtonia growth reference dated 18 nov 2014

tish wrote:I have some pellets of 12/12/12 i think. Maybe I should add a little too

Look at mine, so slow! Photos are taken today.

7.5 weeks old seedling


5.5weeks old


About 6week old in my office table, this one is bending 90 degrees?!

First off with the Darlingtonia Californica, as I was having algae problem on my sphagnum mix. I've decided to transplant the 2 seedling and the existing seeds from the germination pot to a fresh sand/perlite/peat media. It was a few days ago when I did it and they look pretty ok today.

Starting with the first germinated seedling.


Third one to germinate, still hanging on to the seed pod despite having 3 "heads"


Heliampora Minor - has 2 dried pitcher and I trim those off. Noticed 2 unopened pitchers today and was wondering why I didn't noticed before.


Drosera Venusta has many germination and I've transferred about 10 of them individually to their own pots.


Drosera Adelae - this little one was previously from the mother plant root bring exposed. It's doing well.


Pinguicula Moranensis Hybrid - This smallest diversion from the main plant seems to do well over the 3 bigger ones.


Drosera Marston Dragon - A small behaviour I've noticed on this plant after flowering for the first or second time. I realised when a new growth curls out:
If it is from above, and the stem's thickness is quite uniform, it is a leaf.
If it curls out from underneath, the thickness of the stem is very thick from the rhizome and thinner as it reaches the tip of the flower bud, that is a flower stalk.

Photo with description:

Heliamphora opens up it's pitcher very fast. Yesterday was closed, today is open.

07 DEC 2000hrs


08 DEC 2300hrs

I have some new plants popping out of everywhere. Start with Drosera Adelae. I took 2 oldest leaf and cut them smaller before putting them on LFS with mother plants. They managed to strike pretty easily.

Here's one in a seedling container.


Another Adelae in a root stike Adelae container



I had a pack of D. Burmannii Humpty Doo seeds 2 months back I think. I remembered there was only 1 germinated seed a month later. I accidentally killed that one by transplanting into old media. After so long. Another seed finally germinate! I guess these are old seeds.



Natch's Seeds were super fast in germinating. I think the D. Intermedia EM Pond is the fastest and is comparable to Mat's VFT seeds in speed of germination. Sowed 02 DEC 2014 and I think they germinate a few days ago.


I'm quite surprised that the Darlingtonia Californica seedling in my office were so much bigger than the one at home. I realised that when I've brought home and put the plant together with the others. Hmmm... Office environment is slightly different. Colder and drier.


Drosera Marston Dragon, spotted a weird growth where the leaf and stem has no separation, like they are being fused together.


Also noticed a male mosquito stuck to an unopened leaf, the mosquito is tricked into drinking sweet juice off the dew.


A Video:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMTZ0lDG0Mo[/youtube]

Here's a very common Nepenthes I bought off a supermarket clearance.
Nepenthes Ventrata

Hey! I think that male mosquito is actually a crane fly

It might be. Let me go check it out later. Thank you SFLguy!

This video was impromptu, I was photographing some plants and i just thought of switching to video mode and go around some of Matt's seeds. It's a bit draggy so bear with it. Best watch in full HD in full screen

VFT seeds in macro video.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BtACtHSKAg[/youtube]

Actually last night, I took 2 video. The other video was a compilation of most of my other young plants and seedlings.

Here's the other video
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX4P3Em9fzM[/youtube]