DaveC

Hi Piker, Welcome aboard mate, that's a great looking clump of VFTs you have there! Karsty, I don't know if it helps but I live in the south east and my plants live in the back garden, unprotected, all year round and have done quite happily for about 5 years now (some even longer as they were in a bog garden before that). Granted we haven't had a properly harsh winter for a while but they've been frozen in their pots without any problems.

Hi Stephen, What a coincidence! I've not been on her for about 6 years then get back to see you've just come back (a few months ago) too. Good to hear from you again!

Hi everyone, I haven't been on here for about 6 years but here I am once again. Around Christmas time 6 years ago I went away for a week and when I got home I found that the fuse to the power supply for my highland greenhouse had blown and all of my neps had frozen solid. All but 2 of a collection of around 40+ were killed ruining years of time, effort and money. This led to my interest waining and then, not long after that, I was forced to move house and the new one isn't big enough for a green house and all this led to me leaving the forum. I kept a few (maybe 20) sarracenia and VFTs which have been living happily in pots in my back garden all this time but will be even happier once I can get them back under glass. Anyway, I'm back again so hi to everyone who remembers me and hello to everyone who has joined since I left. I'm looking forward to chatting about all things carnivorous and hoping that you guys can spur me on to getting my finger out and getting my love and my collection going again.

:offtopic: This has absolutely nothing to do with the topic, why did you feel the need to post this here? If you feel that this needs discussing then why not start your own topic rather than hijack someone elses? Also, do you think that posting in this writing 'style' is going to help someone who is trying to improve their English??

Ah, here we go again. Just as the thread is gaining some positivity and progressing towards solutions for at least some of the CPS' problems along comes Vic to stir up a load of (insert your own word here) and start pointing the finger again. Vic, rather than continually going over the same things time and time again how about just letting it go?! Maybe it's time to accept that as you're not a member the committee is under no obligation to answer any of your accusations and despite certain people not coming to the society's defence this in no way infers guilt. Also, I take my hat off to Jerry and Carl for offering their time and skills. I'm glad to see that there are a few out there that can offer some constructive criticism and then their help to put things right rather than just point out faults. Unfortunately I have absolutely no expertise to offer but thanks again to all who give up their free time for mine and everyone else's benifit. Dave

I hadn't heard about using bat guano for feeding neps, how very intriguing! Time for some research me thinks.

My highland greenhouse only has a paved central path. Either side I dug a shallow dip then covered them with pond liner and bark chippings. In the height of the summer I give those areas a soaking and they seem to stay damp for a few days which certainly seems to help with the humidity.

They do produce sterile seed. Persever with the seeds that you've planted though, I planted some seeds that I harvested from one of my neps about 6 months ago and they're only just sprouting now.

Defintely, I've never seen it before so now I know what to look out for.

I would still recommend the guy I bought from, take a look at my earlier post.

Thanks for your replys chaps, gas is sounding more and more likely as the way ahead for my night time heater. I appreciate that this will be a hard one to answer as everyone's insulation is different and outside temps vary greatly but, out of interest, how much gas could I be expecting to go through when heating my 8' x 6' highland house to 8-10C for 12 hours each night (I'd use an electric heater to take the the temp. up to 18-20C during the day)? Dave

I was in Cuba last year and found loads growing in the grass where the sun loungers were in the hotel. It was great seeing them growing naturally, especially as it's one plant that I've never had any success with.

Hi Simon, Thanks for the info. Yeah, this is just for my highland nep house, I don't heat my sarra/VFT house. I take it the plants benefit from the extra CO2 in the air when using gas? I forgot to add an update, I emailed Bio Green who stated that they don't have any service centres outside Germany but that they do sell spare parts. It's the 1800W element that burned out on mine and a relpacement is 25 euros plus postage. I'll have to fix it myself but not a bad price and certainly easier than building a whole heater from a collection of spare Parwin parts as I would have to do since they're not selling whole units any more. All that said, after it stopped working I had to use my spare/back up which is just one of those cheap electric fan heaters that you get in every garden center. I wired it through my Simply Control thermostat and it's worked beautifully ever since - even on the coldest nights.

I've bought frpm him a couple of times before and never had any problems.

I bought 30 meters from this guy and would highly recommend him. Its a bit expensive but its top quality, arrived in just a couple of days, he was really pleasent to deal with and he gave me a good couple of meters more than I bought. I asked him if he could do one 30 meter roll which he stated he couldn't as it gets very expensive to ship bigger rolls.