P. vulgaris, grandiflora growing tips needed

Gordon Wells (gwells@iri.upc.es)
Wed, 18 Sep 1996 12:09:06 UTC+0200

I need some advice about growing temperate pings. I recently got ahold
of a few specimens of P. vulgaris and P. grandiflora, and now they've
produced their winter buds and are starting to lose their last summer
leaves. My plan is to winter them in the bottom of my refrigerator
in a styrofoam box at about 1 deg C, but there's a few of things I'm
still wondering:

- Should I go ahead and put them in the refrigerator now, or
wait until later in the fall ? It seems that if I start their
winter period now, I would have to make it last until April or
May at the earliest, which would be 1 or 2 months longer than
their usual winter period of 4-6 months. Can I keep the winter
buds out of the refrigerator until later in October ?

- Can I place them in the refrigerator still planted in their pot,
soil and all, or is removing them from the soil their only chance
for survival ? After all, in the wild no one ever comes around to
uproot them.

- Also, my plants are growing in the same pot with the D. rotundifolia
which grew alongside it in their natural habitat, and these
are still growing new leaves. If I put the whole works in the
refrigerator now, I'm afraid it might be too much of a shock for
the drosera. Should I maybe wait until their growth slows down
too before placing the pot in the refrigerator ?

I'm also curious to hear if anyone has any interesting ways of keeping
these plants cool during the summer (their average summer daytime
temperature should be around 16 C, and 11 C at night). Until now, I've
been keeping my plants in a terrarium and placing a 1-liter bottle of
ice inside every morning and evening to keep it cool. It works, but I'd
really prefer to get them out in the open and find a less
labor-intensive way to cool them off. I'd like to avoid refrigerators,
vitrines, peltier elements and air conditioners, both for aesthetic
reasons and so the plants can catch their own bugs.

One idea I've been considering is to cool some water to about 7 deg C
with a water cooler and either keep the pot sitting in it or else let it
trickle continuously through the soil. I'd be interested to hear if
anyone has tried this sort of a setup. I'm wondering whether keeping
the soil cool will be sufficient, or it's also important for the air to
be cool as well ? My usual summer air temperatures are between 25 and
30 C, but if the soil is cool, the air surrounding the plants will be
slightly cooler, but I don't know if it will be enough. Has anyone
tried this in similar conditions ?

Hoping to hear from someone,

Gordon Wells
Instituto de Robotica e Informatica Industrial
Av. Gran Capitan 2-4
Barcelona 08028
SPAIN