I'm relatively knew to carnivorous plants - I've had a Venus Fly Trap for
about 1yr, and I sowed some drosera, and some saracenia hybrids before
leaving for the US. Emails from England suggest that the drosera are
doing very well, and the saracenia are "growing".
Water seems to be the main problem at the moment. I currently collect
rainwater - but (possibly due to my own laziness) I never seem to collect
enough. I believe you can get special purifiers, but a lot of "normal"
purifiers will not do. What kind is suitable for carnivorous plants in
general?
Also, there is a fair chance that when I return to the UK, I'll get a job
which will be 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off sort of thing. This is not very
good for watering bog plants! I thought that I could build myself a
simple self-waterer (I do a bit of hobby electronics). This shouldn't be a
problem, but has anyone had any experience of this sort of thing that
would be worth passing on? I was thinking of getting a small pump from a
surplus shop, and device a simple conductivity level switch. A little bit
of electronics would make the rest work.
I'm over here in CA for 4 months - return at the end of August. I'm
actually a postgrad student working on an earthquake from 1957, but I
shall be touring around in August. What are good localities to visit in
the Western US (I haven't decided exactly which States to visit) for
various CP? I'm not going to take any samples or anything like that -
I've no need (I've found a good supplier in Hereford), and plant export
controls are there for a very good reason (and that's forgetting about
CITES and any US-specific laws!). I'll probably have a macro lens for my
camera by then, so this would be a good opportunity to try it out.
Richard