dudo klasovity

Hi, never tried cephalotus (dont grow it) , helis I am still feeding regularly and they are growing and propagating very well:-) I havent had the time to do more research on this since I have work, school and left time is invested mostly in TC. I use the findings of artificial nutrition I have experimented with to plants' advantage. When I have more time i will try more experiments.

Hi, Guys! With weather like this I think I will have to move the more sensitive species (ascendens, graomogolensis,...) to my workplace with air conditioning at 22C at all times. Not sure though whether it is a good idea beacuse then they will get no night temp drop and the lighting there is poor, but maybe that is all i will be left with if the weather doesnt get cooler (seems not to be the case so far). I am very susprised that camporupestris grows fine and also would expect d. graminifolia to be more sensitive, but it is doing ok. I think the only species profiting from this are the petiolaris sundews:-) They love it like this:-) P.S. The sensitive species are suffering the same outside and under artificial lights inside which makes solely the temperature responsible for their complaints. I removed the humidity dome for sundews outside to minimize the overheating, will see if it helps and also how they cope with the humidity drop.

After wekk or two of 35s day and 20s night the south americans start to complain. Ascendens red the most, which surprised me a lot. Then roraimae and others,,,as well as graomogolensis,,,,the best looking are montana and villosa even seems to like it. I hope they will not suffer much damege since we are not expecting cooler weather anytime soon....

Adorable sundews you have Carlos! :-)

Hello, Nadja! No, I did not do anything special to make the rorid cuttings grow. They came from TC culture that I exchanged and got contaminated (during the transfer in mail I suppose), so I had to cut off the bottom part and just potted the top in water-soaked peat/sand mixture and placed in a hot place in humidity dome. When they started growing I removed the cover to avoid rot and ensure air circulation, placed them in a very hot palce. They ve been growing fine so far (no previous experience). Thanx for the compliments btw :)

Thank you for the location name correction, Fernando!:-) That baby of yours is beautiful sundew. Roraimaes are medium-speed growers for me but have never set a bloom in my condition. Maybe there is a specific trigger mechanism for this? I have grown them for several years now. They propagate quite well via leaf cuttings.

Hi, Will! Here we are having temps over 30C on daily basis as well. Cant say how the plants are coping because I am in Slovakia for 10 days now and all my plants are in Prague. I hope they will be still in a good shape when I return since I protected them from direct sunlight before I left. We expect another week with 30ies and tropical nights so it will be interesting to observe which species suffer the most by overheating. Will report later:-)

Yes, they definitely do. I stick them in the TC jars on agar in the fridge at 4C for 4-6 weeks. Never sterilise seeds after stratification, because they are activated and the sterilant will kill them or/and destroy the hormones accumulated in the seed. |Always use stratification past sterilization. :-)

Beautiful plants, Matthias! Thanx for sharing! :-)

Drosera roraimae according to my observations likes warmer conditions than other south american sundews. Summer: day 25-32C/night 18-22C, winter: day 18-24C/night 7-15C. Needs very high light levels ( I use artificial lights). I use R/O water tray method but let the substrate dry quite significantly once in a month (only moist), then replenish water to flood levels. It seems they like the fluctuations.

Thanx for nice comments:) Willy, I agree that building a large bog would solve the problem with the overheating of the water and substrate:-) Need to mention that for some unfortunate individuals (me including) who live in an apartment block it might become an obstacle;-) Yes, I think it is possible to build such an environment. Indeed, I would love to see someone-s well established south-american bog with dozens of camporupestris, roraimes, graomogolensis, ascendens, communis,,,etc. Would be a nice sight I presume You would need to have the bog outside in order to provide sufficient mass of not overheating substrate and water. The the plants, having the roots in cool water, would take the summer sun and heat well, but for winter you would need to move all the plants inside and that sounds kind of annoying. Before I move to a house I leave this up to someone else to try:-) I take this would be a very expensive experiment

roridula gorgonias cuttings started growing heliamphora minor divisions started growing heliamphora tatei var. tatei

Hello, yesterday I finally got some spare time so I took the oportunity to take some quick shots of some plants. I hope you like them:-) drosera falconeri coming out of dormancy drosera derbyensis falling into dormancy drosera intermedia clumps (Canada) drosera intermedia (Slovakia) drosera anglica (it is interesting fact that all my hardy drosera go into dormancy for about 3 weeks after deflasking and then start to grow normally) drosera filiformis var. filiformis (with hitch-hiking anglica and peltata) drosera filiformis 'All red' (non-dormant dorm) drosera burmannii (with some d.tomentosa var. glabrata scattered around) drosera sp. Pretty Rosette drosera x tokaiensis and spatulata (dumping site for my TC where i pour the water from deflasking) drosera madagascariensis (probably the oldest plant in my collection) drosera admirabilis drosera tomentosa var. glabrata drosera graminifolia (trying to survive the heat spell, not too dewy at the moment, but still putting up new leaves) drosera roraimae 'Cerro Adua' drosera roraimae 'Gran Sabana' drosera villosa drosera ascendens 'red' drosera graomogolensis drosera schizandra

I have never seen too much sun for cacti when I was in Mexico :-)And they have nothing but sun all day long:-) Well, as you say it is mainly the heat that kills sundews but I have to insist from my experience even breezy warm (not hot) but too sunny area makes troubles for my plants (outside, without cover). I agree with you that very important is the temperature of the substrate, especially when the plants are in small pots the substrate, water and roots overheat very quickly and the plant suffers. In the wild the water never gets as hot as in the pots, because of its incomparably larger mass.

Hi, Will! I know! We are having a heat spell in Czech Republic as well (~30C) and my balcony is facing south so it gets direct sunlight from 11AM to 7PM. The wall heats up to 40C and it gets really hot there. I made very important observation, that altough sundews are said to be sun-lovers and never can get enough, there are limitations and this statement is not universally true. Only spatulata, capensis and burmanni can take the extreme sun and heat from my experience. Even pygmies that I had exposed to direct sunlight started to go to summer dormancy (some of them permanently). I quickly realised the sun would kill them and I moved them inside where they get the same warmth but less sun and they started to grow again. Other sundews I have down on the floor,where the sun gets filtered through smoke-glass and they are covered with plastic domes to raise humidity (anglica, all kinds of peltatas,sp. Pretty Rosette, dielsiana,intermedia, filiformis, admirabilis,montana var. tomentosa, ascendens red,..) I know all these would suffer bad damage in the direct sun as hot as it is now (yes,even nidiformis complained). Covered under smoke-glass they grow very nicely! I gues, besides heat the humidity is an issue as well. All other sundews (mostly south american and regia) aI have inside under artificial lights. I am surprised they grow nicely even at the temps going up to 32C in the aquarium. I think they take the heat well because the nights are still relatively cold (10-15C). Sundews are not cacti that is for sure

Hi everybody! I took pics of some jars and would like to share them with you. I hope u like them:-) drosera natalensis 'Kwa-Zulu land, Natal,AF' drosera ordensis 'Lake Argyle, Kimberley, AU' (a nice example of what happens if you use too hard gel. The plant on the left has difficulties rooting in the medium and the root stays on the surface. In comparison with the plant on the right, which rooted OK, she is underdeveloped. They usually shoot a second roothair to penetrate the surface, but sometimes it is better to help them, the weaker ones might not manage). drosera moorei drosera dielsiana seedlings drosera sp. Lantau Island young plantlets a young drosera falconeri 'Palmerston,NT,AU' seedling drosera ascendens 'Itarare,SP,Bra', propagating fast, time to replate huge specimens of d. tomentosa var. glabrata "Serra do caraca, MG, BRA' drosera broomensis x ordensis germination of drosera arcturi 'Gelignite Creek, TAS, AU'

Very nice plant, Aymeric! Mine is done flowering since yesterday. Hope u get many seeds:-)

beautiful!!!

I forgot to mention that I have tried this with Pinguicula vallisnerifolia and it worked well. Although I have to admit that this plant is a very slow grower for me in my media composition. Good luck with your plants whatever you decide to do, Miguel! :-)

Hi, Miguel! This happenes to my drosera in TC sometimes. The leaves curl and push the starting root away from the medium surface, so it 'hands in the air'. The plant gets its nutrients through the leaves, but grows much slower than if the roots were in direct contact with the nutrients. I usually open the jar and push the plant down to stick the root inside the medium. It is better for the plant to have developed roots prior deflasking. The chances of re-establishing its growth in regular subsrtate are better. For some species rooting afterwards is not a problem but for others it is. I think it is similar for Pings.

Hi, cosmo! Tweezers? Oh, no for God's sake! When the mean number of seeds is usually 20-200 seeds per jar....After sterilization and washing with sterilized water in a small beaker, I let them settle to the bottom. The 'unsinkable seeds' (what i like to call them) which stay afloat are usually not viable anyways, so I just use plastic Eppendorf micropipette to suck the settled seeds and water in, then just sguirt the contents of eppendorf in a jar with media and then carefully remove the excess water (again, using eppendorf pipette). Takes about a minute of your life:-) Done

Peter, your d. ascendens 'Itarare, SP,BRA' is a slow grower? Hm, interesting. Mine grows quite fast, but is one of the less tolerant plants and complains about too much heat, especially when flowering (which is pretty much almost constantly). The seedlings, on the other hand, grow faster when it is a bit warmer and when fed often. When you throew it out (mercilessly, as you say:-)) I expect them to grow just fine, since we are not expecting any heat spell for the rest of this month. Also I fing interesting that your graomogolensis is so forgiving, mine complains very early, just after few hot days! And it is very well established plant. If i had to make a chart, most heat tolerant to the least tolerant species from my observations it would look something like this (only species I grow in vivo): d.ascendens 'red form' d.roraimae'Gran Sabana,Ven' d.tomentosa var. glabrata 'Serro do Caraca,MG,Bra' d.sp.'Cerro Duida,Ven' d.roraimae 'Cerro Adua,Estado Bolivar,Ven' d.ascendens 'Itarare,SP,Bra' d.kaieteurensis d.camporupestris 'Serra do Cipo, MG,Bra' d.graomogolensis d.graminifolia "Giant" 'Itacambira,MG,Bra' ....but of course, others may have other experience.

I established this thread because to me some questions arose concerning the temperature limits for some south american species. Since there are many new being discovered, the list goes on and the whole concept of how to treat these species adequately becomes more complex than 'keep them cool and they will be fine'. I take an example from my experience. I grow most of my south american sundews in a terraria with artificial lights, as is recommended by most of the growers. This method has solid grounds, since they need lots of light and the direct sun causes overheating of semi-confined area (needed to provide the elevated humidity), quite quickly, resulting in extensive damage to the plants. My setup is very simple, in fact, I grow them together with some south african species: (graminifolia, villosa, ascendens, roraimae,graomogolensis,tomentosa,montana,camporupestris,....+affinis,slackii,ve nusta,admirabilis,.....) The temperature inside varies, because back side is about 5C warmer than the front side. Thus, moving plants around and observing their growth for over a year now , I noticed for example, that d. roraimae likes it quite warm-then it grows much faster than in general conditions. On the other hand, d. graomogolensis is notoriously known for being quite temperature-sensitive. Most of other species are somewhere in between. So the general method (less than 26C, maybe even 30C as long as they get a decent night temp drop) for growing is OK, but can be diversified quite significantly given the particular species. Not only species, but also a location of the plant within species is important, I think. South America is a very broad designation, plants growing high in the mountains certainly like different conditions from those down on the savannah. Since the number of south american sundews in our collection increases, maybe it is a good idea to make a list of subgroups depending on their temperature demands. I know many growers using the general method and not having very good results. I have most of the rarer species still in TC, where there cannot be such temp dependance observed.Later i intend to make more research on this. My last surprise......drosera ascendens 'red form': in general, d. ascendens (various locations) is quite forgiving species as far as temperature goes. Nevertheless, I grow most of mine in cold conditions with great results. Drosera ascendens 'red form' to my surprise, was growing fine, but quite slow in these 'general conditions'. Since I have some spare material for experimentation, I exposed some plants to direct sun and temperatures reaching 40C!, with night temps about 22C. I was quite shocked when they looked very happy long term! I do not have location data for this species. Does it grow in some hot place in the wild?> Or is it an artificially produced plant? I used this as a small example of how much the 'general method' can be altered with some south american sundews. I know there are many much more experienced growers than myself, who maybe would like to put a word to this:-) Here is a pic of the heat-lovers, currently growing with rorids:-)

Hi! Thanx for the compliments. My jars are going through hot spell now temps outside reach 33C and since my room is south-oriented, the temps inside are 27-30C under the lights. They have been like that for some time with no visible harm, except for some species slow down the growth a bit. So the temperature is not that big of an issue here. Of cource, these temperatures cannot be used in a long run. Especially seedlings are sensitive to overheating, but far not as much as in regular substrate.

Hi! Few weeks ago I put explants and sowed some seeds of rarer sundews on various TC media. Most of the seeds were not very cheap and it is always a dilema for me whether to sow them on reliable but painfully slow regular substrate or take a risk with possibly wrong media or contamination and watch it rot or die.... This time (as usual) my impatience prevailed So I post some pictures of germinating plants and some bigger plants: d.ascendens 'Serra de Ponta Grossa, Campo Largo, Parana,Brasil' d.ascendens 'Itarare,Sao Paulo,Brasil' d.villosa 'Serra do Itipiboca,MG,Brasil' d.neocaledonica d.tomentosa var. glabrata 'Serra do Caraca,MG,Brasil' d.rotundifolia d.anglica on NAA medium d.moorei d.sp.Lantau Island d.broomensis x ordensis d.ordensis 'Lake Argyle,Kimberley,AU' d.roraimae 'Ptari Tepui,Venezuela' d.hirtella var. lutescens 'Cristalina,Goias State,Brasil'