Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 13:03:20 +1030 (CST) From: blymn@awadi.com.au (Brett Lymn) To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg309$foo@default> Subject: Re: Tuberous Drosera dormancy
I suppose I should preface all this by saying that, due to locality, I
do have some advantage in growing these things ;-)
According to Glenn Rankin:
>
>A more common problem for me is that the plant starts to go dormant,
>so I start to let it get slowly drier. But before it is completely
>"tuberized", it sends out fresh sprouts. Some proceed to make a new
>tuber, but others have just formed a stem by the time it gets too hot
>to survive and I lose it.
>
What I normally do is as soon as the drosera shows signs of shutting
up shop for the summer I remove the water altogether and let the pot
dry out, I then (as I said before) only water very occasionally. My
normal practice is not to stand my tuberous drosera in water at all
but, rather, just increase the watering frequency when the plant is
actually growing (since they come up in winter the plant normally just
survives on what it gets when it rains).
You must remember that these guys come from a very arid country and
that they have evolved to cope with these dry conditions. I must
admit that I have killed a lot of tuberous drosera due to
overwatering, the (only) surviving one I have was a weed in some other
pot and it was pure chance that I hit upon the growing method I have,
what happened was the other plant in the pot died so I put the pot
aside to scavange the potting mix for something else later - it was
only many months later that I noticed the tuberous drosera coming up.
I have stuck to the regime I have described for quite a few years now
and have had the drosera come up regularly each year.
I have also found that CEPHALOTUS does not like to be kept too wet - I
was watering it like I watered my sarras but it always seem to go down
hill, now that I have backed off the water - not to the extent I do
with the tuberous drosera! - the plant seems to be picking up. I
would estimate that I give it about 1/3 the water I give a sarra.
-- Brett Lymn, Computer Systems Administrator, AWA Defence Industries =============================================================================== "Upgrading your memory gives you MORE RAM!" - ad in MacWAREHOUSE catalogue.
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