Rob-Rah

I have some seeds from Lowrie. With them is a small piece of paper labelled "GA3". I presume this is impregnated paper. Can anyone tell me how to use this paper to make up a specific concentration please? I want to treat Drosophyllum, Roridula and Byblis. With thanks.

The soil they are all in looks fairly damp as it is.

I think snails are beneficial in a large-ish tank actually. I wouldn't tend to use them in anything smaller than about 2 feet in each dimension though (not depth - Aldrovanda can use quite shallow water 6"-8" is more than enough). The snails do clamber out of the tanks too. So maybe not for indor growing! What kind of vessel are you using? Are you using artificial light? I used a thick substrate of sedge litter from bestcarnivorousplants in my Aldrovanda tank, which seems to be heaven for my plants. I have about an inch of peat, overlaid with some washed sand, topped by an inch of this sedge litter. Then the water was "peat tea" (peat and water boiled together and then strained). This then had to settle out and stabilise. I grow Typha and Carex with my plants. It took several weeks for the tank to stabilise properly. If algae really takes a hold of the tank, then it is annoyinbgly necessary to remove all the water and start with fresh water. One thing I make a point of doing is to trim off all the dead leaves from my companion plants and then scatter them over the water surface perdiodically. They sink and decompose, further providing the correct conditions. One of the best tricks I use for getting a very healthy tank is to add live Daphnia every 2-3 weeks in the summer. These are available from petshops/fish-shops in the UK easily. They feed the Aldrovanda as well as helping to get proper chemical cycles happening in the tank to keep it healthy. I use them for aquatic utrics too. The fact that these Daphnia come in hard water doesn't seem to bother any of my plants. As well as Carex panicea, have you considered using Acorus pusillus (Acorus gramineus 'Pusillus') as a companion plant? Or Cyperus isocladus - but this would not be so good under artificial light due to it's height. By the way, T. minima grows to alnmost two feet tall too.... I know of at least one grower who uses U. gibba as a means to suck up nutrients too. Any companion plant will need keeping in check obviously. Cheers.

If you do a search on here there are a few threads about Aldrovanda growing. I grow a European form only, not the Australian forms (yet). If you can't find Typha minima, Carex panicea is about the smallest Carex sp and works fine too. Then again, if you are growing a tropical variety (where from Aus is yours from?), you might want companion plants from the tropics instead. The main thing with getting good growth (for me) seems to be firstly getting the tank established properly. Even well before you add the Aldrovanda. And secondly, to get nice compact and fast growth, and flowers, it needs plenty of light (which encurages algae). If your plant is currently in turion state, then it logically can take a dormancy. Dormancy is triggered by lower temps though (when the temps get below around 20C), and if it is an Australian form then I have read tha dormancy can be ignored and the plants kept in permanent growth. Cheers.

Safeer to keep at least the pot in the shade.

Hi, I have been growing this for a few years too (I think from you, possibly). Mine is in the cool greenhouse, in a submerged pot, sharing a tank with a small U. inflata. Temps get down to 2C in the air on a winters night. I have some sedge in the tank too, to help about algae, but the tank has been stabilised for 3 years now, so no worries on that front any more. It seems to grow all year quite happily, and I have never seen it dormant. I wonder if you managed to flower yours though? And what you think the conditions for flowering might be? Cheers.

No germination from any of the above seeds. Multifida planted in greenhouse pots in Sept-Oct 2005. Temps down to 2C in winter. Nothing. The others in my petiolaris tank. No germination. How annoying.

Well, for what it's worth, no germination of D. banksii or D. subtilis after almost two years. I have thrown the pots out today. Varied the wetness, heat of 20-35C, bright light all the time. Nothing :-( Oh well. At least I have room for some Byblis pots now. lol

Lowrie has R. dentata seed......

Living in Malaysia, your humidity should be fine without a terrarium. Indeed, you stand to overheat the venus flytraps, and subject to them unhealthily stuffy conditions. Better off just growing on a windowsil I think!

Hi, There was a thread I started last year (I think) about any variants between ease of cultivaton of the clipeata clones: http://www.cpukforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13803 Best wishes!

I would have thought that as long as the bog was well-planted, including non-CPs, and plants with plenty of roots, that the plants themselves would keep a turnover of chemicals in the soil, and leech any buildups automatically.

Mine isn't lined, nor does it use a reservoir inside it. It is just full of compost and the barrel itself is waterproof (the slats needs to soak in water and then they swell and seal the barrel - barrels are usually designed to store liquids!). I drilled a hole around 4-6 inches below the surface of the compost and plug this with a rubber bung. In very wet weather I can remove the bung and allow the excess water to drain off down to that depth. Best wishes.

I thought mine were in the UK, but I don't really remember.

Ahhh. I love Meconopsis - some lovely examples in the botanic garden here in Durham. I guess we have the cool and wet climate and soil for them. I have tried them in London a few times in "woodlandy" conditions in the garden, but never succeeded. Too dry I think. Browsing Chiltern Seeds catalogues this year has almost made me contemplate growing them in pots - maybe sinking them into the ground as they approach flowering...

Getting hold of these plants is frustrating. There is a seller on eBay selling seeds regularly at £5 a pop. He claims they are all totally fresh, yet the one I had a go with rotted. If they really are fresh when he received them at his end.... for goodness sake why doesn't he germinate them all and sell the seedlings instead? A plant keeps fresh much better than a seed. So many seeds must have been wasted by now.

Have you seen this older thread: http://www.cpukforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7198 Is there more you need to know? I tried to germinate seed last year, but nothing happened for me :-(

Nice colours! Thanks.

I have never grown them, but do grow a large number of Australian bush plants, so for what it's worth this is my approach to everything I have grown from the same ecosystems so far. I would aim for a very free draining compost, with no fertiliser (a touch of peat in a predominantly sand/grit/perlite mix), aim to keep just slightly moist all the time, avoid complete drying-out, introduce as much fresh air and air movement as possible, avoid atmospheric moisture and expose to maximum sunlight. I would expect the plants to tolerate a min of 40F fine unless you have species from the north or centre of the continent - also at lower temps it's easier to keep the air nice and dry. I would also be inclined to use rainwater (or distilled water, etc.) only. By the way, if you want a home for a any of your seedlings, pm me...... :-)

Given the propensity of most utrics to produce plants from stolon, leaf, flowerstem cuttings, I wonder whether leaf cuttings would work in vitro for U. menziesii (they don't just laid on a pot of soil - I tried one). Easier than germinating seed if so.

Some of mine don't show properly until well into the new year. Sometimes as late as the end of Feb. I leave them in the tray and wait.

I grow a selection of Proteacaea from ZA and Australia, with a few Proteas amongst them. So far I have only flowered P. nana and P. cynaroides. I find Serruria florida very easy to grow and flower. It also roots from cuttings very easily. If you would like me to root a cutting of this for you, please pm me. I will be pruning the plants in spring and can use them as cuttings. It will take until the end of 2007 though, and you will have to remind me then. Indeed, this offer is open to others too, although I have limited material, and I would be charging about £5 each. Even with smoke primer, I find seeds very hard to germinate, with frequent nil success rates. Be careful as smoke doesn't work on all anyway. The hard nut-like seeds (some Leucadendron and Serruria for example) responds far better to a soak in a dilution of hydrogen peroxide. Some seeds in nature rely on a mixture of formic acid, sudden wild swings between day and night temps, smoke from fire, heat from fire, and some probably as yet unknown variables. Just chucking them all in smoke water is by no means a good catch-all. Some Australian Proteacea actually are inhibited in germination by smoke. I have not tried GA3 on any yet, althought am hesitant to do so. The trick to good growth in pots seems to me to be finding the right soil for each plant. A very sandy peat/sand mix suits a lot, but others need aerier soils, and for some reason some never seem to take off no matter what I give them. Surface moss growth causes some difficulty for me with some, as the plants form mats of rather delicate surface roots. Nutrient-free soils are the general rule. They generally need loads of sun, not too hot air, fresh air, low humidity. Australian species tolerate higher air temps better, but then need even lower humidity. The best solution is to place plants out of doors all summer. I have found all plants, with no notable exception (except perhaps for some Grevilleas, which I think is the easiest genus), to be susceptible to drought when pot-grown. Once the plant dehydrates it will usually never recover. You must keep the soil slightly moist all the time. But also avoid overwatering. A single drying out may be fatal though, and cold, dark winters add their own challenges to the balancing of factors. The best outdoor collection of proteacae I have seen in Europe is at the Blandy Garden (Quinta do Palheiro) on the island of Madeira (where Echium fastuosum is native). The giant echiums are great. I have played with E. pinninana, E. wilprettii, E. boisseri, E. russicum, but so far I have yet to find a suitably sheltered place in the garden for the first two. The giant Lobelias are also great fun and sort of similar. I currently have seedlings of L. gibberoa on the go with seeds awaiting germination for a few other alpine tree-lobelia.

I have found D. ascendens phenomenally slow-growing. Leaf cuttings I took over three years ago are still not mature plants.

The issue may have been one of wetness. It is by some reports a plant that does not like it too wet. LFS has huge water-holding ability, whereas a mineral substrate may be better able to dry out. ?

Oooh. Early for flowers! Nice.