Well It's Summer
I had raised a ton of carnivorous plants last year and it was nice but then, they came to treat the apartment to prevent bugs and the plants died.
These plants are extremely sensitive to only a couple things. They will die if the water is not pure. I mean distilled. They will die if the soil is not completely devoid of all nutrition - use peat moss only. They can die if they are repotted. They usually do not like having their roots disturbed. And then there is poison in the air - I found out the hard way about that sensitivity.
As a result of the fumigation efforts last year, I lost some of the variety of exotics that I had. It is impossible to replace them in fall or winter because the places that deal in exotics will not sell plants in their dormant phase.
Now that the weather is warm and humid, I made my first order to replace the plants that I breed and sell. Here are a few of the ones I just got back in stock, plus a couple new ones.
Butterworts are the ones that attract insects to their sticky leaves and digest them when they land. There are many, many species of Butterworts. I received two kinds, as seen in the unboxing video below. I have never had any luck growing Fly Traps from clippings, less success still if from seed but they are very hearty if the first two rules are obeyed (distilled water only and moss for soil).
I have no problem growing them and caring for them. All of the video footage and photos contained in this post are of the plants that I recently purchased.
If you like seeing this kind of content, follow my side channel dedicated to the bug hunters, @greenthings !
For the last ten months or so, the only breed of plants I have had in stock were Drosera Capensis - and here is one of those that came with the order by surprise. I am curious what is sprouting from the base of it. This is interesting and mysterious since my other Droseras have not brought forth anything like it that I had noticed.
My guess is that it will be a multi-bud flower when it rises up. This Drosera also seems to have fewer, but much more broad and full traps (leaves), and they invariably fold over to fully encapsulate the prey when it is caught. My other Droseras do not do that every time, only sometimes when the prey is large.
Here is an example of the new Drosera having folded its leaf around the prey. The process happens over the course of 12 to 18 hours so that the insect can be more easily digested. The leaf does unfold days later when the insect is only a husk.
That's it for today - thanks for stopping in.
