Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 05:15:33 -0800 (PST) From: Philcula@webtv.net (Phil Faulisi) To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg538$foo@default> Subject: Re: Waking up the cobra lilies
Hi Joe. I live in Morgan Hill, CA and I have been growing my cobras
outside in deep pans of equal parts live sphagnum and medium grade
spongerock. I started with a single rhizome that was given to me 4 years
ago and I now have 9 mature individual crowns. But I also notice that
leaving them in an area of cold storage where they can still get natural
light seems to help. I had always tried before by using the refrigerator
to store them over winter but had no success. I must say though that I
am fortunate to have mild winters and have the luxury of leaving the
plants outdoors for winter. They are otherwise grown in a cool mist
tropical greenhouse summer/fall due to my hot , I mean, very hot
summers.
I do not know your growing conditions or if you have hard winters.
Darlingtonia can really withstand some very cold extremes, I know, I saw
them a few years ago in May and it was very cold there still. The water
where they grew was freezing cold. I would not want to fall into one of
many bog holes we peered into. :) But I also noticed that most of the
plants still had good firm what looked like live green pitchers. None of
them looked like they had really gone totaly dormant. Perhaps it may
have been just an unusually mild winter in that region. I'm not sure.
Anyways, I am not an apartment dweller like many of the cp enthusiasts
are and have been able to utilize nature as my guardian for storage. I
will admit some losses in the past, but for the most part they do well.
If you have access to outdoor storage you may want to investiate this
option as an alternative. If you are growing indoors exclusively I'm
afraid I don't have this experience and can not offer an opinion here. I
hope then one of the other members who shares similar techniques can
offer you some advice. Good luck with your remaining plants. Oh, by the
way, do you use a fungicide on your plants prior to storage?
Phil
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