> After killing 4 Darlingtonias I stopped hoping I would find one
> that grew with room temperature soil. Instead I concentrated on
> providing the cool soil temps (below 65F) required by this plant.
As I've said before, I think the English climate suits Darlingtonia.
I (and I'm not the only one) find that it grows like a weed, whether
inside the greenhouse, or outside, and seems to be unkillable.
I'm surprised that that Slack's book (written in England in 1986)
says that he would only consider using pure sphagnum moss
as the medium for mature plants, and he also mentions the importance
of cool running water.
Can anything have changed in 10 years that the plant now grows
rampantly in the usual peat/sand mix, and just stood in the water
tray with everything else? The temperature in my greenhouse might
reach 90F/30C on Summer days, but probably nearly always falls below
65F/19C at night. The plants may well be kept cooler by evaporation
of the water. In Winter of course, it is much cooler.
As I said a while ago, I recently had a Darlingtonia stolon appear
through the drainage hole in the bottom of a large pot (at least 6in/15cm
deep). Since this was rather inconvenient, I have just pulled it out
though the hole (I didn't want to unpot the main plant). It came away
with a good length of root (actually underground stem I suppose) and
is now happily potted separately.
-- Clarke Brunt (clarke@brunt.demon.co.uk)