>display presentation for a collection. Nonetheless, Barry has carefully
>rigged his greenhouse with a fancy life support system consisting of
>a swamp cooler, a water line, a reverse osmosis unit (complete with 55?
>gal. storage drum, interior greenhouse switches, solenoids, and other
>gizmos). All of this is pretty near required for easy growing in an
I think I've developed a hobby without even being aware of it---gizmo,
gadget, and doodad creation. Now I'm developing a system to do all
my watering for me. Just plug it into the power and water supply, and
it will produce R.O. purified water, and water the plants automatically.
Most importantly, it has a minimum of moving parts and should be very
reliable.
>Like most people's collections, most of Barry's good stuff is in the
>small pots :-). I got my first looks at Genlisea (one was even in full
Michael understates. Almost all my stuff is in small pots! The only
way to grow as many species as I do in the 2m X 5.5m area my ``coldframe''
greenhouse provides is to keep the quantity of each plant small. Constant
division for trading also helps.
>So, Barry and I had an intriguing get-together! And we had fun scaring the
>natives with our loud and bad Brittish accents as we discussed the finer
>details of Genlisea trap mechanisms! Ok, you had to be there :-)
My first inclination was to deny this completely.... You know, comedy
based upon _Lentibulariaceae_ morphology is pretty narrow. That we found
it so entertaining is so...pathetic!
***********
I found reading Michael's impressions of my greenhouse entertaining,
until it degraded into a cruel litany of vicious slurs against my most
beloved plants, the _Sarracenia_. That I would graciously welcome
someone into my camp and feed him, and he repays me with such heinous
acts, leaves me stunned and wounded...
The fiend wrote (and it pains me to relive the reading)...
>Also surprising was the the (apparent) scarcity of Sarracenia - Barry's
>favorite! Most of his Sarrs are in small pots, and only a few were big
>specimen plants... but if he had many more this size there would be no
WHAT!? WHAT!? I've got more than 25 pots 6" across or more, about two trays
of 3" pots, and with this season's seed just over 60 pots of seedlings!
Every damned taxon represented, I'm just missing some colour variants, and
you say ``Apparent scarcity''?! Indeed! Hmph!
>I'm not a big Sarr fan, but who could not be impressed by large specimens of
>S. minor - Oke Giant, S. lecophylla, and (my favorite) an S. psittacenia X
>lecophylla X other stuff hybrid with wierdo pitchers!
HAH! I present to you, oh dear and gentle reader, that this vagabond, this
pretender, this self admitted ``not big Sarr fan'' (and what could be a
greater charge levelled against one that that? I couldn't devise a crueler
slur if I tried) was shown a fine collection of _Sarracenia_ and all he
could say is that (I won't even mention his creative spelling---I'm well
above that) his favourite was some HYBRID! I shudder to think of what such
a man's moral character (if such thing still lurks in his blackened soul)
has degraded into. Ladies and gentlemen, lock your doors and gather
your children close! A daemon walks among us! The monster is loose!
Barzai the offended
P.S. If you take anything that I wrote after the string of asterisks above
seriously, take a few deep breaths, sip your coffee a bit, and relax.