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D. schizandra


RL7836

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I've been growing this plant since last spring. During the summer, it lived in a terrarium (dark corner) but kept getting smaller leaves and most of them were bleached a very light green color. This fall, I took it out of the terrarium and placed it in front of a north-facing window (no direct sun) and placed it in a tray of water under a plastic dome. Since I changed conditions, the plant appears to be happy but is still verrrry slow growing. It seems to grow about 1/2 as fast as D. adelae.

I know Joseph Clemons had some success with higher heat & light levels from this post: http://www.cpukforum.com/forum/viewtopic.p...ight=schizandra (did these conditions work long term?)

I'm curious about what conditions people have found to be optimum. It seems hard to believe that a plant from a Northern Australian rainforest needs to be treated like a highland grower....

Also, D'Amato in his book states that these plants despise fertillization. Has anyone tried foliar or bloodworm or other fertilization?

Here's a current pic (pup barely visible at bottom):Dschizandra011906RS.jpg

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In terms of colouration ... sorry RL, mine weren't schizandras but

cape sundews ... but I did feed them with bloodworm! :) Feeding made

no difference at all to the red colouration of the leaves, but instead did

make the plants more "perky", and sped up their growth.

So, drawing from this, feeding the plant with bloodworm will

not give it brighter colouration ... I would agree with pinguiculaman,

and put colouration down to lighting :)

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Matt - There is a world of difference between D. schizandra and D. capensis. D. capensis grows like a weed in virtually any conditions whereas D. schizandra is very particular in its requirements.

Ron - I currently grow the plant in a similar setup to yours, a terrarium on a windowsill. I don't know that it is entirely happy but is holding its own. It is no larger than when I obtained it more than a year ago.

I have seen huge examples of the plant (own up Vic! :mrgreen:) and would like to be able to grow it more successfully than I do.

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I'm curious about what conditions people have found to be optimum. It seems hard to believe that a plant from a Northern Australian rainforest needs to be treated like a highland grower....

The species actually grows high of up in mountains of tropical rainforest so does conform to being a highland species. It's habitat is nothing like the lowland areas of the same region where species like D. lanata, petiolaris, burmannii or indica live.

I won't bother giving any growing tips myself because I have been a serial killer of D. schizandra over the years. I just can't seem to find a spot anywhere that the species likes. I am also unable to keep the heat low enough in summer to prevent it from frying. I have no problems with D. prolifera or D. adelae though.

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Perhaps D. schizandra should be termed as 'D. Cinderalla '

The other Sisters of Queensland are easy to grow and will tolerate many conditions.

Is there anybody who has had their plant flourish?

(I donot have this plant....but would like too)

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I've seen photos of very happy plants, pupping out babies all over and crowding the pot, etc. This would make it seem that the plants grow faster under some conditions - but maybe that's not an accurate deduction. Maybe it's just much slower growing than I'm used to...

SundewMatt apparently grew them well - from this old post: http://www.cpukforum.com/forum/viewtopic.p...ight=schizandra

Other than the slow growth and apparent intolerance of heat, mine now seems happy. When this summer comes though....

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My schizandra is growing great and has babies sprouting in the pot as well. It's in the corner of my south facing windowsill in a small plastic "terrarium" of sorts.

I can post a pic tomorrow.

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My schizandra is growing great and has babies sprouting in the pot as well. It's in the corner of my south facing windowsill in a small plastic "terrarium" of sorts.

Hi Bonnie,

South facing window - any idea what temps the plant sees? Between your post and Pingman's old post - I'm confused why my plant suffered during the summer.... (produced smaller bleached leaves)...

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Two friends of me have great success in totally different conditions: One is growing them in the warmhouse part of her greenhouse under a 250 W sodium pressure lamp, the other one in growing them in a big bonbon glass in a relative dark corner of his desk. I wonder why I cannot get them to grow?

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I have been growing D.schizandra for the last 3 years and my experience is that if conditions are right (high humidity and partial shade) it will grow slow at first, but once it establishes it will grow bigger, a little faster but never as fast as D.adelae or D.prolifera and will start producing babies from its roots. In my case, it took about 1 year for the plant to establish and start growing faster and bigger.

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I have been growing the same D. schizandra plant for close to 3 years now. Longevity doesn't translate to success however :tu: since the plant is about 1/2 the size as it was when I bought it. There was some botched experiments over the years.

Currently the plant is experiencing the light colored leaf growth similar to what Ron described his plant doing before he moved it.

I'm just about ready to move it to a windowsill where it will experience "chilly" conditions at night. I think that's something my plant can benefit from.

-Homer

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Guest phil_faulisi

I don't have pics to support it...but I too have great success with this species. As Matt mentioned it needs extremely high humidity. I grow mine in a terrarium of pure, live sphagnum moss that has a solid, clear glass cover on the top. The container resides in my greenhouse and sits directly under my swamp cooler in 80% shade. During the spring and summer when the swamp cooler is in use I direct one of the louvers of the cooler to blow cold, moist air directly on the terrarium. Temps here stay at a high of 70 degrees F during the day and 50 degrees F during the night.

During the winter, now, the temps during the day in this location are 50 to 60 degrees F and at night are as low as 38 degrees F. The rosettes get bigger than your hand under these conditions and are a wonderful golden green color.

I don't artificially feed the plants. When they catch small gnats that hatch from the moss I make sure I remove them from the leaf if they show any signs of molding.

So I would say the best results can be seen with cool to cold temps day/night, moderate shade, live sphagnum growing mix (works best for me), and 80% to 100% humidity. I also don't keep the water level in the terrarium very high. With a sphagnum depth of 10 cm I keep the bottom 2 to 3 cm filled with water.

Hope this helps somewhat.

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I have 2 D. schizandra. They both sit in a plastic propagator on a west facing windowsill. For most of the year, the clear propagator lid is covered with grease-proof paper (baking style!) to provide shade from the afternoon sun (but no shade is given from the current winter sun). They are potted in pure live Sphagnum, I water from above about once month (when I remember) and they permanently sit in water. I bought the plants from a grower last spring/summer and they were tiny - about half the size of my finger nail. Now one is 10 cm across, the other is about 6 cm.

I went trekking in Australia in 2001 and managed to see schizandra in the wild on Mt. Bartle Frere. It formed dense colonies of plants (hand sized plants in dustbin lid sized colonies) next to disused logging tracks in the secondary rainforest. I didn't see any in the ancient primary rainforest (possibly because I was too busy pulling off leeches to notice). In August, the day temperature was about 27C and at night time about 16C (ish). Humidity was near 100%.

Paul.

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1 more thing.... mine are way overdue for a repotting, and I've noticed a few are dying. I suspect I've got bacteria buildup and it's killing them since I've had them sitting in the same water for a LOOOOONNNGGGG time. There go my plans to transplant other Drosera seedlings this weekend. Oh well.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Just found this thread but figured I'd chime in. I have a pot just about bursting with this plant (but, like Phil, I don't have any pics of it at the moment.) The largest of them is probably about 7cm across (still not showing the notch trait yet though...) I grow them in my crawlspace with my highlanders under 4 120cm tubes. Distance to lights is about 20cm. Media is live sphag, watering by tray whenever the tray gets dry.

All in all a really easy guy for me, I think I only lost one out of the batch when I first got them.

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