Adrian Slack details an interesting method in his books: "Insect
Eating Plants and How to Grow Them", and "Carnivorous Plants". He
mentions killing this species by getting the crowns wet and disturbing
roots (by just transporting the plants in his car!).
He starts with a 4 inch clay pot and puts a "wick" of long grain
sphagnum in the hole at the bottom. He fills the pot with moss
peat/loam based potting mix/sand in the ratios 2:2:1.5. The pot is put
in a tray to soak in its fill of water and then drained. He lays three
seeds on the top of the soil and puts on an opaque cover to slow
evaporation and block the light. He checks often, and if it appears
the soil is drying out, he waters by brief immersion from the bottom.
He never applies water to the top. In 3-6 weeks, when the first sprout
appears, he removes the cover and puts the pot in a sunny position. In
this method, the seedlings are never transplanted and all but the
strongest are later removed.
I have used a method suggested by Joe Mazrimas, which I find easier to
apply. First the seeds are soaked 24 hours in distilled water to
hydrate them. They are then put it a small pot with
vermiculite/perlite 1:1. The seeds are pushed down a couple of mm, so
they can't be seen from above and the pot is kept just moist, but not
soggy. With this method I typically get germination in 4 weeks with
25-50% success rates. Using this very light soil, the seedlings can be
carefully transplanted when they get four or five leaves.
For these plants, one must balance the danger of drying them out with
keeping them so wet that they are attacked by fungus. The seedlings
are more tolerant of being wet than adults.
Although others have found Drosophyllum to be very cold tolerant, I
find that when I grow them outside here in the San Francisco bay
region, the plants slow down in winter and look very sad and stressed
after heavy frosts. It appears that they are used to very mild
winters. So, if the plants will see temperatures around freezing, this
might suggest that the seeds should be planted in the spring or at
least in the summer. This has to be balanced against the consideration
that the seeds germinate better when they are fresh and should be
planted within 1 year of harvesting for best results.
TO BE CONTINUED
Glenn Rankin