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Mark Long

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Mark Long last won the day on July 18 2016

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  • Location
    Oxfordshire
  • Interests
    Caving, running, general outdoors stuff. Oh yeah, and carnivorous plants.

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  1. Hi Melle I haven't had time or space for to continue with tissue culture unfortunately, so have deflasked the plants I had and got rid of the jars. I might have a photo somewhere but will have to look on my old laptop I think. They were basically just standard small jam jars with lids that I bought off ebay. I would make a few holes in the top with a nail and the cotton wool and wound-dressing pad taped down on top would keep microbes out. These were fine to sit loosely on top of the jars while sterilising (autoclave/pressure cooker). I've done the same with polypropylene take away tubs as well, sowing lots of darlingtonia seeds in them. To be honest I'm not sure how important having gas exchange for the culture vessel is for these as they're not exactly fast growing. I'm aware that it's of great importance for faster growing cultures though. There might be some Duchefa stockists around, Melford and Sigma in the UK used to sell their stuff I think. Something like Murashige and Skoog should be pretty standard wherever you manage to get it from though. Good luck with the culture!
  2. Hi Melle Saw this had gone unanswered so thought I would add a few things which might be useful. For the medium, I have used products from Duchefa. Their website has details of the composition of the media they sell, so if you compare these to the phygenera products it might help in your decision. I'm guessing the phygenera comes with culture vitamins and hormones included in the medium and Duchefa sell a similar MS product. https://www.duchefa-biochemie.com/product/category/id/16 Not sure about the jars, I just used small jars with the original lids, but with tape holding the lids closed (and ants out!), a few holes in top with a pad of non-absorbent cotton wool over them held down with wound dressing material and masking tape. I don't know the technicalities of the light I'm afraid, but I would say ideally have some from the beginning. Good luck!
  3. Hi Alcibiades I've tried growing Sarracenia in sphagnum in the past (just sphagnum and also with perlite) but wasn't happy with the results. The plants seem to bury themselves and sitting in a tray of water makes the moss at the bottom of pots rot. I do like using sphagnum for plants which I don't water by a tray, instead watering from above (Nepenthes) and also as a top dressing with a little in a peat/perlite mix for Darlingtonia, which sit in a tray but with daily (or when I remember!) overhead watering to flush some air through. Other people's experience may well be different from mine though. I have seen S. purpurea growing in clumps of sphagnum in Cumbria so it may well be possible to get good results. I suspect that having the right species of sphagnum (what I've bought online is I think from pine woodland rather than moorland), growing in shallow pots and keeping the water fresh could be important. Some of my Sarracenia are in the traditional peat/perlite 1:1 mix (regular peat and Moorland Gold) while most now are in Melcourt Growbark/perlite/Cornish Grit 1:1:1. Good luck with whatever you decide on, Mark
  4. Thanks David, my back up was to order some by courier. I contacted a couple of garden centres near me and Wheatley Farm Shop were very helpful and ordered some Growbark in for me, so I've picked them up this morning along with some garden plants. They don't normally stock it but said they can get more in if they're given some notice. -edit- Since then I have also picked up some Melcourt SylvaGrow from the Wantage Gardeners Association (membership £1 per year) at a good price. They didn't have any Growbark or the Melcourt Horticultural grit (the finer grade) that I've been using in the Sarracenia mix but offered to order some in if wanted.
  5. I'm looking for somewhere to buy a few bags of Growbark, preferably near Oxford, and was wondering if anyone knew anywhere that stocked it. BHGS in Evesham don't currently have any it seems and if possible I was hoping to avoid getting it by a courier. Cheers, Mark Ps. Even if it's miles from where I am, if you know of a current stockist and think others might be interested please feel free to post it here.
  6. They look great! Are you growing other Drosera this wet or is it something special for intermedia?
  7. I think there are pheromone traps available out there to kill the adults, not sure how specific they are to Tortrix. Bug Clear claims to be effective against caterpillars, never used it for this purpose though.
  8. Great looking plants!
  9. I've never seen them anywhere else in the wild before but from what I can gather the other sites in the UK where they are mainly found are on chalk grassland, so much drier. Here on Anglesey they are growing in lime-rich mire, which is a pretty uncommon habitat to have. Most of the plants were growing on islands in very swampy ground, so we had to step carefully through the mud and water to get close to them. You're right, very similar indeed! I have no idea how variable the flowers on O. insectifera are, apparently there is a form in the area where we were looking where the flower is entirely yellow but we didn't see any of these.
  10. Glad they were there! I would've been a bit embarrassed and sorry for sending you on a wild goose chase if they weren't! I really like seeing them growing like that, straight out of wet rock or in just a little bit of organic matter.
  11. A few of us joined local plant legend Nigel Brown for a trip around the Anglesey fens about a month ago. It was pelting it down with rain though, so I wasn't brave enough to get my camera out and just had my mobile phone to take a few photos. There were plenty of marsh orchids to be found, D. rotundifolia and P. vulgaris too, but it was the O. insectifera that stole the show! I went back to the site a few days later on a much brighter evening to take a few photos.
  12. There are P. vulgaris on The Great Orme visible from the road. I imagine there are lots of other spots for it, I know the Snowdonia and Anglesey areas better though. Never seen D. anglica in the wild but I 've heard there are some site in Ceredigion. Lots of rotundifolia round here though. Good luck with your search!
  13. Thanks for sharing Christian, those are some beautiful looking plants and I hadn't seen the origin post from Fernando either so thank you both for posting!
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