Yossu

Well, for most of my plants that need dormancy it's not really a question for me, as they are in the greenhouse, so they get the cold weather when the cold weather comes. It was just the couple of sarras I have inside that were the question. I'd heard to keep them outside from the beginning of November to the beginning of March, which matches with your advice at the start, but is a month longer than yours at the end. As for cutting them back, why do you do this? I can understand cutting back dying leaves, but why cut them all back? Don't they need leaves for photosynthesis?

Thanks for the explanation.

Well, I finally got the two bulbs I ordered (linked somewhere earlier in this thread, but linked again for convenience), and I can't say I'm hugely impressed. For one thing, they don't seem that bright compared to the CFLs I'm using. I bought 36W LED bulbs, which are supposedly approximately equivalent to about 54W of CFLs. Doesn't look like it to me. Also, my trig was wrong, and the pool of light is only about 10" wide, which means I'd need quite a few bulbs to cover the same area as my CFLs. As it happens, one of the bulbs doesn't even work, which impressed me even less, but at the moment, I'm thinking of just buying some more 6400K CFLs. Thanks again to everyone who replied here, it was a great learning experience. Still learning, but not there yet.

Why, do they keep going longer?

No, as I said, it's definitely not a purp. Probably some mixed hybrid, but it happens to be a particularly nice one. Anyway, I was expecting to be told it needs to go outside. Shame, but if that's best for the plant, then that's what I'll do. It can always come back inside in the spring. Thanks to both of you.

I have a sarra (specific type unknown, but not a purp judging by the tall straight pitchers) that I put on my windowsill some months ago. The ones in my greenhouse are all showing signs of entering dormancy, but this one is putting out quite a lot of new leaves. Do I leave it indoors for a while longer, or put it in the greenhouse, even though this means stunting all these new leaves?

Thanks, but I'll pass

That's a really good idea, especially the bit about training the wife! I regularly saw 40degs in there this summer, and although I didn't lose any plants because of it, I would have preferred it a bit lower. I have all glass, so will probably use Perspex instead. Broke enough panes when building the greenhouse, can't imagine how many I would break taking them in and out!

Maybe those people with a FB account should start blasting the FB stuff with comments about how much better these forums are, and how people should be posting here instead! Drive them mad until they come here anyway

Thought I was the only person on the planet without a fb account! Nice to know there are at least two others . I've looked at it once or twice, but was put off by it wanting me to create an account before it would even let me see what the site was about, or what it offered. I wasn't sufficiently interested to give my email address out to yet another site in the offchance that it was good enough to stick with. Shame that these forums are losing people to it. Although I prefer the old style, the new is still good. Will miss it if it dies off.

Along with what everyone else said, I just want to emphasise that eBay is not a great place to buy plants, and definitely not seeds. There are too many rogue sellers there to take the risk. The for sale section here is great, and you can generally rely on what you see there. Also, you mentioned that you fly traps died in the winter. Are you sure they didn't just go dormant? Many carnivorous plants go dormant in the winter, and may look dead, but if you have patience, they usually come back to life in the spring. As others have said, ask as many questions as you like, people here are brilliant for helping out.

Welcome! You'll find loads of help here, so feel free to ask. Remember, we like pictures :)

I'd been wondering about this too. When the level gets low, do I just put in half an inch or so? I normally keep a couple of inches deep, but allow it to drop down most of the way before refilling.

The joke of it is that I just searched Amazon and couldn't find any matching products on the UK site, so if it is a marketing ploy, it's a really poor one for a UK-based forum. I found the product on the US site, and one of the two reviews was a "I'm giving this five stars because I got a free one in exchange for a fair and unbiased review " The other was probably the seller anyway! Those kind of reviews are enough to convince me to avoid the product anyway. If the only way they'll get good reviews is by bribing people with free ones, it doesn't say much for the product.

Call me more than suspicious, but I'm fairly sure of it! I was trying to be tactful . The post smacked of "I'm selling these, but don't want to admit it, so I'll pose as a satisfied customer and hope no-one notices" Still, I could be cynical, because I used to do that once!

How long have you had it, and what results have you seen? The reason I ask is that I recently started a thread about LED lights, and got a lot of info that made me realise it's not so simple. A lot of what are sold as grow lights aren't, and you have to be careful. I'd be interested to know what results you have had with yours, assuming you've had it long enough to know of course. here's a link to the thread (not sure why it came out like this, I'm on an iPad, and the forum doesn't work so well)...

Thanks. That I can understand!

Sorry, my bad. I meant the Parabolic Aluminized Reflector. Perhaps "useless" was a bit extreme. It seems to be significantly less important that the wavelengths.

Thanks for the clarification. When you first mentioned PAR, I looked it up and came across the Wikipedia article. I thought I was onto something then! So, it seems that the PAR bit in descriptions is probably a benefit, but overall misleading and useless for our discussions, as the main point of interest here is the wavelengths you get. Is that right? Thanks again.

Wow! Not much else to say. Thanks for sharing the pics

For those of us who are less versed in the technical side of this, please could you explain what this graph tells me? It's all a bit confusing really!

Well, isn't that interesting! I have three Calatheas, and never knew why they had red undersides to the leaf. Thanks for throwing that one in.

OK, so now you're confusing me again! I thought I'd got this sorted. So, back to the previous question, how do I tell a decent one from a duff one? We've established that the wavelength for red light is important, and that stronger individual LEDs are preferable to a collection of low-power ones (for the same apparent wattage), but what about this PAR business? Does that tell me anything? Please clarify for the permanently confused!

Thanks for that. Anything else? A lot of them don't seem to go into too many specifics about the wavelength. Do I take that as an indication that they aren't so great?

There are loads of led grow lights, but the problem is, how do you know what is any good. I started this thread because I'd seen some that looked very good and very cheap. The comments I got here suggested they were "garbage." How would you sift through the hundreds on offer to decide what's good? I've ordered a couple of the white ones linked earlier, one warm white and one cool, but I would be interested in trying some PAR ones as well. I have about 200 sarracenia seedlings here, so I have plenty to experiment on! I would like to set up a few areas, each with different lighting, and see how the plants compare after a few months (or whatever). Would be helpful to know what you look for in a bulb. Thanks again.