Other topics:
Someone wrote about a month ago to ask why we don't like Hyponex peat moss.
This material is not actual SPHAGNUM peat moss but is probably sedge peat.
The difference can be seen immediately. Actual sphagnum peat moss should be
brown and light, and when watered should still have a crumbly texture.
Hyponex peat moss is black, and when watered is heavy and dense, and after
a few days of being constantly wet develops a stinky smell. YECCH!!
I suspect there's something wrong with Hyponex vermiculite too - this is
yellowish material don't look at all like the nice silver vermiculite
sold by other companies.
Labels that have been written on with permanant ink can be reused by just
scraping off the ink with steel wool. It just takes a few seconds scrubbing
under running water.
How slow a grower is U. humboldtii? I don't grow this species but most of
the utrics I do have are very fast growers.
I took a close look at my overwintering CP this past weekend. I have a
number of plants under a 1.5 foot mulch of dead leaves. Here's what
was found:
Sarracenia: These came through great! The only leaf die-back was on
tops of long pitchers that stuck up out of the mulch. Seedlings that
were totally covered under mulch look the healthiest.
D. intermedia, D. rotundifolia, D. filiformis filiformis, D. linearis:
These northern hibernicula-forming species still had healthy hibernicula
with no rot.
D. filiformis tracyi: This southern hibernicula-forming species didn't look
too good. A pot of five plants had 4 hibernicula that were rotten and only
a single lone hibernicula looks healthy.
D. capillaris, D. x Nagamoto, D. brevifolia: These do not produce hibernicula
but still look great. Most of the leaves are still entirely green.
D. binata and D. binata dichotoma: These surprised me that they survived.
I took a look at them last December and the crowns looked black to me
but when I uncovered the plants this past weekend, most of the crowns have
sprouted leaves!
D. capensis: These didn't look too good. From two 10" pots of several dozen
plants, only a group of 3 plants had living green crowns above soil level.
This species should still come back from the still-live roots below ground.
P. grandiflora: The leaves were green but very thin. Noticable die-back
of the old leaves is occurring quickly from the tip toward the crown in the
few days since the plant was uncovered.
Temperatures were in the 70's this past weekend. But, we are due for some
snow Wednesday with temperatures back in the 20's-30's the rest of the week.
-- Don Burden New Albany, Indiana, USA donb@iglou.com