A New Forum

I'm for it, they're all interesting plants, with a wide range of topics, and I can never keep them alive, so I could ask for help next time mine starts to die.

So ... what do we do from here?

I would love to have a Carnivorous Plants forum on DG! It would be a great place to discuss my many Mexican Pinguicula species and hybrids, and also why Drosera regia 'Big Easy' is the best fly-catching houseplant ever...

Count me in.

I have one CP but don't know how to take care of it. It is in a hanging basket. Seems to be growing well, but I dont know what to do with it this winter. The forum would be helpful.

Picabo, that picture of your awesome CP made my jaw drop onto the desk...WOW!! Overwinter it indoors near a sunny window if you have the space, mine seems happy there. I suspended a line from a hook I put in the ceiling to hang the planter. Just a thought.

Joseph

Picabo - before you do anything with it for the winter, you definitely need to get an exact identification of it. Many, many CP's are from temperate regions of the U.S. & require winter temps & dormancy in order to survive, in which case bringing it indoors would kill it.

However, if it's a tropical variety, then that's a completely different issue.

If I were you, I would contact the folks below with both your above pic as well as any other info you have on the plant. While they sell CP's & CP supplies, they are also a WEALTH of information which they don't mind sharing - especially if it will help someone better care for their plant.

http://www.cobraplants.com/

I think all these wonderful posts, pics, & info would better serve the DG family if they were transplanted to their own forum, don't you guys? They're kind of wasted hidden away over here.

(Hint, hint. . . .lol!!)

Thank you...I have lots of plants but this is my first and only CP so far.
I keep looking for more.

We have a big farm pond, I have been using water from the pond to water this, I had heard somewhere that they would like "ripe" water.

I have spring water piped to the house to water my special plants.

Picabo, your plant is a Nepenthes. Definitely tropical, so bring it indoors for the winter :-)

Breezy...Thank you for the link. I wasn't sure how to send a pic of mine. From their pics and information I think it is tropical, maybe the Asian Pitcher Plant Nepenthes spectabillis x ventrico. A good excuse to go to the garden center where I got it and see if they know.

I bought it last summer and it made it overwinter in the greenhouse. I just saw the post about them needing cold and I wasn't sure.

Thank you Ispahan..that is what I had decided.

Now see how much a forum will help us new CP folks... :)

Picabo, that is the coolest plant I have ever seen! Saw one just two days ago at a hoity toity nursery near my home and was fascinated by it! Now I see one here! Hmmmm - I wonder what that means?
If you just do a 'google' search on tropical carnivorous plants, there is tons of information with photos that look just like your plant.

Neps don't like "ripe" water. My intermediates may be able to take somewhat "riper" water but somewhat too risky for me to experiment at this point. The total dissolved solids (TDS) in pond water will generally be well beyond the range that is deemed acceptable for intermediates as well as highland or lowland Nepenthes.

Awesome pitchers picabo! Major drool material you've got there. Take it in for the winter in a few weeks. Mid September should be perfect timing to begin bringing it in.

Your Nepenthes will also need humidity. Humidity like an orchid. It would benefit from misting and being placed over a dish of pebbles and water.

Which is why I could stop myself from buying one! No more plants like this until the GH!

Thank you Pixydish... They are cool plants, a friend of mine has lots of different types that she got at one of those really hoity nurseries. She bought hers after seeing mine. They were way out of my price range. I could only drool. I keep thinking that she will get tired of them and give them to me. LOL :)

Equilibrum...The TDS is over my head, I'll Google it...What about using the the spring water? The pond is really clean lots of plant life and fish. I have used the pond water in the pitchers ever since I got the plant. I have used the spring water in the pot. I guess I have been lucky so far. It is putting on a lot of new growth and new pitchers so I don't want to change a lot to quickly.

CaptMicha...I have a small green house and run a mister often in the winter for humidity. I have also used pebble trays under my hanging plants in the winter when I have them in the house.

Thank's for all the comments and information.
Betty

TDS include minerals and particulate matter from rotting plant and fish "ejecta" LOL love that word. Use distilled water or collect rain water for your CPs.

I'll remember the word. Thanks for the information. Rain water has not been a problem this summer except maybe toooo much.

Seriously tho - does anyone know exactly how many troops we have to muster before the forum becomes a reality? We've had more activity on this thread than quite a few of the already established forums. Is there a quota?

Say Betty, really sorry about the TDS deal. I thought about it and as an afterthought I actually went back and added Total Dissolved Solids and placed TDS in parentheses just in case because I know how frustrating it is when somebody uses an acronym that I don’t know. Again, truly sorry about that. Regarding pond water, far too many nutrients and I’m thinking you’d almost be better off using tap water in a pinch which I really don’t condone. Tap water probably is around 100-250 parts per million (ppm) and my guess is pond water is going to be somewhere around 600-700 ppm if not considerably higher. Distilled Water by me averages around 11-20 ppm, RO water is around 7-8 ppm, RO/DI water averages around 1 ppm, and my rain water is excellent at around 20-30 ppm but that fluctuates wildly. I use rain water most of the time, distilled water when I think about picking it up, and RO or RO/DI water when I am out of both and need to “make my own”. Yes… I have an RO/DI unit as well as a decent RO unit (Reverse Osmosis). RO/DI units are for really “sick and whacked carnie folk” who are anal. You really do not need to incur the expense of one of those unless you are into tissue culture. Does sharing the ppm readings I get from my meters associated with each type of water help?

Wanna good laugh? We were buying spring water to avoid drinking our tap water. We bought all kinds of natural "spring water' and had been using it for at least 5 years because you know... the label said "spring water" so that had to be better than our water from our well. Nope, I began using my TDS meters on my expensive bottled au naturelle with the sparkling spring label whatever it is they sell us at the grocery store and lo and behold the TDS meter says my well water was something like 50 ppm less than the expensive au naturelle whatever it was we stopped buying a few months ago. Now I fill up the old "special" spring water jugs with the water from our spigots and set it out on the counter.

We have a great natural spring on our property. The water taste wonderful. We should bottle it. We had it tested years ago and the man testing gave me all of the test results...Over my head. I know it taste so much better than the city water. We now run city water in the house, but still have the spring water for the plants. We also have a rain barrel that I can use for the garden.

Thanks for your information

Mmm... spring water. Real, fresh spring water tastes better than all the juices, sodas and other concoctions to me.

I have well water too. I'd really like to test it b/c if water sits out long enough, it developes red algae. Also, I have a few other concerns.

What inexpensive test kit should I purchase and what am I looking for in the results?

Well, now I'm getting worried about my carnivorous plants! Mine are in peatmoss-filled pots and two are in the veggie filter, and two are in the very shallow beach area of the pond. They all appear to be happy, and I get plenty of new growth, but maybe they will start resenting all the dissolved solids in the pond water? I believe all of mine are hardy to this area. I don't have any tropicals. Does that make a difference?

I went recently to an equatic garden center. In the pond was the only way they had their carnivorous plants. They were in those kind of pots you use for hydroponics but still floating.

But then again, they had the hardy, bog native type of pitchers. I think the kind that picabo has occurs outside of that kind of enviroment. Are they terrestrial?


Did you guys notice how many threads this would be on a forum??! We could fill one up pretty well!

Those are the ones I have, too. Not the tropicals. I have two types of Sarracenias, like the ones that are native to this area.
Picabo's plant looks like it might be an epiphyte? Does it grow on trees?
See?
We're learning already!

I agree CaptMicha - don't know what else we have to do to prove that this would be a worthwhile & well-used forum.

Patience, please ;o)

Dave has been kinda busy with the "katrina" threads on the weather forum (and his and Trish's anniversary was yesterday ;o)

I'm guessing there's probably enough interest (I counted about two dozen "votes" even though there have been many more posts than that to this thread.) There's no minimum threshhold for starting a forum. We try to gauge (as best we can) if there is widespread interest that is likely to be sustained over time. It's not a precise science, so we often leave the request threads up for a while to see if there's enduring interest in the suggestion itself.

Thanks Terry!! Will sit on my hands - lol!!

Assuming we do get the forum, is there any way to transfer some of the great CP info to it already supplied above?

Count my vote! We grow several cultivars of Sarracenias and are always looking for more information. Fascinating plants and if we had more information, we might be able to add to our collection.

I'm setting it up now. Did we ever decide what the name of the forum will finally be?

dave

Hey - I'd keep it simple - "Carnivorous Plants".

This message was edited Sep 2, 2005 11:32 AM

Done!!

http://davesgarden.com/forums/f/redmeatoffthebone/

dave

Thanks Dave!!!!!!!!

Happily!

Wow! Who's the man? Thanks Dave!