Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 12:34:34 -0400 From: Kit Halsted <kit@kithalsted.com> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg1956$foo@default> Subject: Re:Sarracenia questions
On 6/29/00, Susan Farrington wrote:
>Kit,
>You didn't give us enough info to help you more...
That's what I get for writing at 3 in the morning...
>where have you grown these Sarracenia? Where are they now, and where did they
>spend their winter?
They've been in my back yard since the end of April or the beginning
of May when I got them. They spent their first (2? 3?) years at
Cascade Carnivorous, I believe outside year-round in Washington state.
>How do you water them?
I've taken to flooding the pot in the morning, having read somewhere
that this helps to oxygenate the soil. The plants are in 5-gallon
pots roughly 12" tall by 12" wide. The pots sit in 3" deep trays. The
flooding in the morning keeps the trays full.
>Do you use pure water?
Distilled and/or rain.
>It's not unusual for S. leucophylla to be very slow to make nice
>pitchers: they always make their best ones in late summer/fall.
>However, they will usually produce SOME spring pitchers... the kep
>to this seems to be TONS of sunshine early in the season. If it was
>too dark back in March, that will delay it substantially.
Ah. I don't know what kind of weather this plant saw back in March &
April, but I know May & the first half of June were pretty overcast.
>As to the S. flava problems... again, tell us where you have it. Is it
>getting a good consistent water supply? While a tray or saucer can
>dry out, the soil in the pot should NEVER dry out, especially in spring
>and summer. So if it went too dry even once, that could explain things.
Same setup as the leucophylla, described above. I originally had all
my Sarracenia in smaller pots with slightly questionable soil & tap
water, but they definitely never dried out. My S. Alata seems to be
thriving in the same conditions.
>There are other possibilities as well... give us more details!
The flava & alata both had pitchers when I got them. The weekend I
planted them, temp & humidity were in the 90s & they quickly caught
lots of flies. The pitchers that caught the flies got large brown
spots on them where the flies were & now have holes where larvae
chewed their way out. After that freakish weekend, temps dropped back
to below normal & none of the plants currently have fully-developed
pitchers, though I'm guessing it'll only be a week before the alata
has one.
-Kit
>Susan
>
> > Is it normal for S. leucophylla to still have phyllodia, but no
> > pitchers at this time of year? (I'm in Brooklyn, New York, USDA Zone
> > 7. We had an unusually cool Spring here, but Summer's getting into
> > full swing, finally.)
> >
> > What would be a likely cause for S. flava pitchers to come up
> > malformed and/or never fully develop? One of the pitchers has some
> > fuzzy stuff at the top, but I don't see any mealybugs on it. I've got
> > apicture up at <http://www.kithalsted.com/~kit/cp/MedFlava.jpg>. This
> > pitcher stopped growing at this stage & has been like this for over a
> > month. There are 2 more pitchers coming up, but 1 seems to have
> > stopped growing at an earlier stage of development & the other is
> > malformed.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > -Kit
>
>
>
>Susan Farrington
>Missouri Botanical Garden
>P.O. Box 299
>St. Louis MO 63166-0299
>susan.farrington@mobot.org
>(314)577-9402
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