- Thu Apr 12, 2012 11:17 pm
#138327
As many of you might have heard, squirrels decided to have some fun with my previous flytraps.
If by "fun" you mean "maim and torture".
So I went back today, since I finally have everything I need, and took pictures of my process.
I start by making a mess in my mom's kitchen. While she's not around.
I put them in plastic bags without sealing them, and wrapped their roots in towels dampened with room-temp water. I hoped this might lessen the shock somehow.
I also discovered that, after all these years of thinking my flytraps had never propagated, it turns out that they had! I'd just never noticed because they were so tiny. I can't tell how old these two are-- a year? Two? They're so tiny, I almost mistook them for the clovers that sometimes try to sneak into my pots.
This was my biggest surviving trap. It was probably one of my first.
First time I've ever dug them up completely, so I finally understood what you guys mean when you're talking about "bulbs". Here, you see one that I dug up from one of my first pitcher plants, and then you see the cut stem on the left that I got to try and clone one of them. While digging up the bulb, I accidentally pulled off some stems, and decided to keep them just in case they're viable. They're probably not, but it doesn't hurt to try.
A car trip home later, I got them all laid out:
So I took the almost-definitely-viable rhizome and the two probably-nots and put them all together. No sense wasting two more pots and what little soil I have left.
This was a trap that was like this when I found it... I actually had to dig a little to find it, because the squirrels had buried it. I'm starting to have a sneaking suspicion that the squirrels were actually digging up my flytraps and eating the bulbs-- it explains why some of them disappeared entirely.
It has no traps left, and the tips are blackened, so I snipped them off and am now hoping for the best with regards to recovery. Because recovery is not certain, I put it in a pot of its own so that I can give it individual care without other plants interfering.
Same goes for my two smallest traps, who I didn't even know existed until I started hunting for remains. So tiny! I've never seen them so small! If you look carefully, you'll also notice the leaves are slightly warped, like they were buried, left awhile to grow, dug, and reburied... I'm not afraid of them not surviving, but they're so small that I want them to grow another year or two before I put them with the big boys. This'll also give them recovery time and space without being overwhelmed by bigger traps or live moss.
I stuck the pitcher bulb right between the one I've tentatively identified as a Yellow Trumpet, and the White Top that I found at Southern States. You can see it peeking out of the ground slightly, the little green leaf blade...
As an interesting side-note, while researching what the White Top was, I discovered that White Tops are listed as Vulnerable. I would sort of imagine that vulnerable varieties would be better protected, labeled, and recognized, etc... maybe I'm being a bit naive. But I doubt Southern States even knew what they were selling-- everything was listed as a generic. It was an interesting find, nonetheless, and it seems to be settling in well.
Now this one, you can see the warped effect more clearly. The traps are wrapped around each other, which makes me think that it was buried and re-buried at least once. It would have grown toward the surface to try and break through and get light, and then... this.
And this one was the king of warped. So warped that I had to cut off some traps and trim it back, because the traps were going completely screwy. To some degree, it was kind of cool, but I also don't think it was healthy. The leaves would twist and corkscrew.
I also think it was buried pretty deep, so I might have replanted it too shallow. I'll have to keep an eye on it. But it's the biggest trap I have, far bigger than the new ones, so I think it can settle into its new home immediately just fine. Without preliminary.
I don't think that's the way the traps are supposed to grow...
And that's it. I'll see how they are in a month. Fingers crossed that they all grow, recover, and settle in.
If by "fun" you mean "maim and torture".
So I went back today, since I finally have everything I need, and took pictures of my process.
I start by making a mess in my mom's kitchen. While she's not around.
I put them in plastic bags without sealing them, and wrapped their roots in towels dampened with room-temp water. I hoped this might lessen the shock somehow.
I also discovered that, after all these years of thinking my flytraps had never propagated, it turns out that they had! I'd just never noticed because they were so tiny. I can't tell how old these two are-- a year? Two? They're so tiny, I almost mistook them for the clovers that sometimes try to sneak into my pots.
This was my biggest surviving trap. It was probably one of my first.
First time I've ever dug them up completely, so I finally understood what you guys mean when you're talking about "bulbs". Here, you see one that I dug up from one of my first pitcher plants, and then you see the cut stem on the left that I got to try and clone one of them. While digging up the bulb, I accidentally pulled off some stems, and decided to keep them just in case they're viable. They're probably not, but it doesn't hurt to try.
A car trip home later, I got them all laid out:
So I took the almost-definitely-viable rhizome and the two probably-nots and put them all together. No sense wasting two more pots and what little soil I have left.
This was a trap that was like this when I found it... I actually had to dig a little to find it, because the squirrels had buried it. I'm starting to have a sneaking suspicion that the squirrels were actually digging up my flytraps and eating the bulbs-- it explains why some of them disappeared entirely.
It has no traps left, and the tips are blackened, so I snipped them off and am now hoping for the best with regards to recovery. Because recovery is not certain, I put it in a pot of its own so that I can give it individual care without other plants interfering.
Same goes for my two smallest traps, who I didn't even know existed until I started hunting for remains. So tiny! I've never seen them so small! If you look carefully, you'll also notice the leaves are slightly warped, like they were buried, left awhile to grow, dug, and reburied... I'm not afraid of them not surviving, but they're so small that I want them to grow another year or two before I put them with the big boys. This'll also give them recovery time and space without being overwhelmed by bigger traps or live moss.
I stuck the pitcher bulb right between the one I've tentatively identified as a Yellow Trumpet, and the White Top that I found at Southern States. You can see it peeking out of the ground slightly, the little green leaf blade...
As an interesting side-note, while researching what the White Top was, I discovered that White Tops are listed as Vulnerable. I would sort of imagine that vulnerable varieties would be better protected, labeled, and recognized, etc... maybe I'm being a bit naive. But I doubt Southern States even knew what they were selling-- everything was listed as a generic. It was an interesting find, nonetheless, and it seems to be settling in well.
Now this one, you can see the warped effect more clearly. The traps are wrapped around each other, which makes me think that it was buried and re-buried at least once. It would have grown toward the surface to try and break through and get light, and then... this.
And this one was the king of warped. So warped that I had to cut off some traps and trim it back, because the traps were going completely screwy. To some degree, it was kind of cool, but I also don't think it was healthy. The leaves would twist and corkscrew.
I also think it was buried pretty deep, so I might have replanted it too shallow. I'll have to keep an eye on it. But it's the biggest trap I have, far bigger than the new ones, so I think it can settle into its new home immediately just fine. Without preliminary.
I don't think that's the way the traps are supposed to grow...
And that's it. I'll see how they are in a month. Fingers crossed that they all grow, recover, and settle in.
Last edited by GothicJackalPaws on Thu Apr 12, 2012 11:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.
but i had to help cuz they were my plants...but I didnt eat any havent brought myself to do it...
)
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