Artificial Darlingtonia seeps

From: Barry Meyers-Rice (bamrice@ucdavis.edu)
Date: Wed Apr 26 2000 - 10:38:26 PDT


Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 10:38:26 -0700 (PDT)
From: Barry Meyers-Rice <bamrice@ucdavis.edu>
To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com
Message-Id: <aabcdefg1283$foo@default>
Subject: Artificial Darlingtonia seeps


>Talk of growing cool loving Darlingtonia in a warm climate has got me
>thinking, has anyone attempted to set-up a growing system whereby the
>water in Darlingtonia pots is circulated, somewhat reproducing the
>seepage effect they often grow in naturally? If not, I know it would be
>really simple to set-up, and the reservoir from which you pump the water
>back into the Darlingtonia pot could be heavily insulated, even buried in
>the ground, filled with ice water, etc.

Hi Chris,

I've made just such a thing. I modified an old, junked drinking fountain
(with intact water chilling unit) to chill water. I used a submersible
pump to send water from this into a terrarium, and dribbled water into
each Darlingtonia pot. I cut a hole into one wall of the terrarium and
used gravity to drain the water back into the unit.

The entire contraption was really quite complex and difficult to operate.
The main lesson I learned is that if I were to reproduce this trick I
would want to make sure my method could carefully control the water
temperature. Too cold and the plants went dormant!

Good luck!

Barry

------------------------
Dr. Barry A. Meyers-Rice
Carnivorous Plant Newsletter
Conservation Coeditor
barry@carnivorousplants.org
http://www.carnivorousplants.org



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