FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hey everyone. I've been considering purchasing a Ping or two this growing season and I was wondering what are some good Ping species for someone with no prior experience with these types of CPs. I have experience with VFTs, Sarracenia and Drosera but not Pings. As always thanks for the input!

My fist Pinguicula was P. jaumavensis. It's one of the Mexican pings. It has been very forgiving with me over the years and when I got it right the plant rewarded me by dividing a LOT.

It's also very small and pretty.

I've had success with a couple of different growing conditions. Currently I have them in my windowsill in an all mineral substrate.

Gigantea seems to be pretty easy. Impressive foliage to boot!

Mexican Pinguicula are typically the best starter plants out of the other Ping "groups" (the plants are often grouped under different categories depending on dormancy conditions); they're very easy to care for, not overly demanding and pretty robust, to be honest. Once you get their basic needs down you can leave them to it, they also reproduce like crazy. I imagine they would make fantastic windowsill plants with you living in Texas.

Good, hardy hybrids to start with are P. 'Tina', P. 'Weser'.
Good species are probably P. cyclosecta, P. esseriana, P. gigantea (gets to the size of a dinner plate easily if cared for right), P. moranensis.

I haven't noticed the care between the different species and hybrids varying all that much, but the ones above are usually reasonably easy to get hold of and aren't too expensive. There are so many Mexican Pinguicula species and hybrids in general, really, that you shouldn't find them too difficult to come by through online suppliers; mind you, P. 'Tina can sometimes be found at garden centres, so that's a bonus.