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Help with Pinguicula setup


Fernando Rivadavia

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hey everyone,

Here's a quick update. Lots of leaves sprouting buds:

IMG_0123.jpg

IMG_0125.jpg

I've also got some flowers, starting with what I believe is P.moranensis "Molango" (bottom) and P.moctezumae X moranensis (top):

IMG_0120.jpg

P.moranensis "Molango":

IMG_0126.jpg

P.ibarrae:

IMG_0122.jpg

P.moctezumae:

IMG_0121.jpg

So far so good! :)

Best Wishes,

Fernando Rivadavia

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Awesome project, I can't wait to see what this looks like once they're all grown in and flowering.

Edited by -Xeno-
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Tried making my first hybrids today, something very nostalgic - I haven't done this since the mid 90's I think! :)

I just transferred pollen between the 3 open flowers: P.ibarrae, P.moranensis "Molango", and what I believe is P.moctezumae X moranensis (or maybe agnata?).

Wish me luck! ;)

Thanks,

Fernando

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello everyone, here's a little update.

Things are going well, plants are blooming and leaves are sprouting new plantlets. I think it's safe to begin investing in acquiring new species for my wall, the set up seems to be working after all. :) I'm even thinking of adding some Genlisea and Drosera...

Anyway, P.moranensis "Molango" has sent up a 2nd flower scape:

IMG_2562.jpg

PmoranensisMolango2.jpg

PmoranensisMolango3.jpg

PmoranensisMolango1.jpg

Unfortunately the first flower did not form fruit, but the P.ibarrae did, so I may have made my first hybrid on this wall:

Pibarrae.jpg

P.moctezumae sent up its 1st flower, but it unfortunately wilted near the apex, not sure why. Strangely enough though, the flower has managed to stay alive and it has been like this for a week or so, still hanging on, literally:

Pmoctezumae3.jpg

Pmoctezumae2.jpg

Pmoctezumae1.jpg

Then I have another species (or hybrid?) in flower, but I don't know what this is:

IMG_2553.jpg

IMG_2572.jpg

IMG_2566.jpg

IMG_2560.jpg

IMG_2555.jpg

Anyone know?

Thanks,

Fernando Rivadavia

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Looks just like my P. agnata × gypsicola (P. ×Agnicola) to me :smile: Yout plants grow nicely well - good to see your "project" is heading the right way :thumbsup:

Edited by Miloslav Macháček
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Hello Fernando,

Great work! Your butterworts seem to feel well here (however a little bit lacking of light ;-) ).

Just one question as I think I did not understand this point: how is the sphagnum maintaine humid? Do you use a pump to get the water up to the top of the wall or the wall is enough narrow for the water to get up by capillarity?

Regards

Edited by kisscool_38
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Thanks guys!

Miloslav: I looked at pics of this hybrid (agnata X gypsicola), and I don't think this is it... Mine is smaller, has bluer flowers, and the leaves & scapes are hairy. I feel like it has P.jaumavensis or P.debbertiana on one side, but not sure which species gives it the overall hairyness and slightly elongated leaves... G.gypsicola?

Aymeric: Yes, I may have to add more lights to my wall, let's see how things progress... As for humidity, I am counting on the wicking effect of Sphagnum. I add water to the gutter and the sphagnum draws humidity up to the top (17cm). That was the whole plan, and why Ed Read and I did that test with the socks (shown above):

P.S. Here's a pic taken over a year ago at Ed's house in LA where we were trying to find out what was the best wicking material for my future Ping wall. Each sock was stuffed with either sphagnum, perlite, crushed marble, or... I can't remember what the others were. The tips of the stuffed socks were dipped in water with some dye, I forget what also. But after several hours, sphagnum was the clear winner.

ExperimentingwithsoilsEdReadinLA2011-02-20.jpg

I have also used a hand spray to get the top of the Ping wall wet -- although it seemed humid and would probably not be necessary if I only had mature plants on my wall. But because I've spread dozens of Ping leaves all around the wall, I was afraid that they'd dry out before sprouting. After the wall is covered, I probably won't need the spray.

Thanks,

Fernando

Edited by Fernando Rivadavia
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Here's an important update: I need to announce the END of my Pinguicula wall!!!!!!

Yes, the Ping wall is no more, it's over, finished, terminated, finit, caput...

It is no longer a Ping wall, because it is now a... CP WALL!!! :)

I'll explain. This week I was in Los Angeles for work and stopped by Ed Read's CP collection, where he not only gave me a bunch of new Pings for my wall, but also a few other CPs: U.reniformis, D.schizandra, and Cephalotus. Thanks ED! ;-)

I still want to keep it a mostly-Ping wall, but thought a few extra CPs may look nice on the wall, as long as they're not too weedy and don't take over the whole wall... So I'm staying away from D.adelae, D.spatulata, U.subulata, U.graminifolia, and such. For now at least. :)

I definitely want to try a few more non-Pings, especially Genlisea.

Best wishes,

Fernando

Edited by Fernando Rivadavia
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As for watering. If you water your wall by soaking the top of construction is a bit more dry then low part I think and after watering dry faster then bottom. Is it right? Why don't water from the top.

Hand spray - sound as ... many work at ppea ppea :D

Whats with paint on the whole wall around? Is it special for wet. I think If you havent problem with drop-out. I had this problem when in room was too wet. Some time in one room (my bedroom) I keep more then 250 kinds (cp everywhere :) ) and this number of kinds many pots with soil and water for them cause higer temperature in room and higher humidity. My paint dropped-out despite plants and pots never touch wall. In your room they almost touch the wall and ceiling.

Edited by Paweł Król
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Mine has longer petals and its paler and more bluish. So yours may has more agnata signs - flower shape and shorter leaves. Different clones of same hybrid might have slight different characteristics in order of flower and leaves apperance - did they not? :smile:

For example from CPPhotoFinder pmoctezumaexemarginataf1ln.jpg

- this hybrid i also own and mine has flowers like the clone in the right has.

But it is still hard to identify hybrid if you do not know the parrents from the beggining :sad:

Edited by Miloslav Macháček
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Pawel,

The whole point of this Pinguicula wall was to have a self-watering system, where I would only add water to the gutter at the base, and the sphagnum would draw (wick) water 17cm to the top.

I did not want to add pumps to water from the top for two reasons:

1.) To keep it simple. :)

2.) To create a gradient of humidity which would hopefully allow me to grow the wet-loving species near the bottom and drier species near the top.

It seems to be working well so far. I've simply been spraying once a week or so just to make sure that the leaf cuttings will not dry out.

So far the paint is not dropping off, but we'll just have to wait to see what the long-term effect will be...

Slavek, the hybrid you see with large pink flowers on my wall is P.X "Aphodite" (agnata X moctezumae).

Best wishes,

Fernando

P.S. We had great meeting of the Bay Area Carnivorous Plant Society today at California Carnivores, and I ended up picking up a whole bunch of new Pings (plants and leaves) for my CP wall:

CC.jpg

I just spent about 2h planting everything, in a few months my wall should be crowded with plants!! :)

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Yes I know that one - its nice and big hybrid. That picture was only for ilustration purposes of differences between two clones of the same hybrid for you to know what I had on my mind. :smile: Sorry for misunderstanding :smile:

That is a LOT of plants. It looks like your wall will be completly covered with ping rossettes in few months. Will be a quite display for sure!

Edited by Miloslav Macháček
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Thanks Slavek, hybrids genetics is fun!! :)

Here are a few pics I just took of the new non-Ping members and the wall covered with all the new Ping leaves.

Cephalotus:

IMG_2576.jpg

D.schizandra:

IMG_2574.jpg

U.reniformis:

IMG_2580.jpg

And the wall:

IMG_2577.jpg

IMG_2579.jpg

Best Wishes,

Fernando Rivadavia

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hello everyone,

Time for an update. I spent two weeks away from home and the Ping Wall survived! :)

Here's what it looked like when I got back last week:

PingWall430.jpg

IMG_0199_2122x1591.jpg

Although it seems like most of the leaves I "planted" in July did not survive (damn summer leaves!), I nonetheless see many small plants spread all around.

Yesterday I added a few new members to the wall, kindly given to me by a good friend: P.hemiepiphytica, P.laueana "crimson fl.", U.asplundii, U.endresii and U.quelchii!! I have little hope the latter will survive, but I'm more than happy to try... I had sufficient amounts of U.asplundii and U.quelchii to spread all over the wall, from top to bottom and side to side, hoping to find a sweet spot. Here are some pics:

Here you can see in the foreground a U.quelchii leaf near the bottom and U.asplundii near the top (also a few in the background):

PingWall434.jpg

And U.asplundii here (you can even see a tuber too):

PingWall433.jpg

It would be a dream to have this wall covered in Pings intermingled with epiphytic Utric flowers! :)

Wish me luck!

Fernando Rivadavia

Edited by Fernando Rivadavia
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Although I live in cool San Francisco, I think it gets too warm by that window sometimes.... Especially for these cloud forest species. But I don't know, I have ZERO experience with these Utrics, we'll see!

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Wats the minimum temp in winter you can give?

I love this experiment and wat you try to do,it s very intresting for see wats happened in future,i am only affraid this go not be the succes you dream for.Time let see this and i hope very match i am wrong ,i go following this topic for sure.Meaby if it s work i go make something like this in my greenhousse.But i think it s better work whit rocks for these plants.

I think the droseras and other CP go take over finally your ping wall after a while(i think this is perfect for these plants) ,personally i not think you can grow Mexican pings on spagnum and peat for long term,i have done a few experiments by my own and have see plants preferee a more minerall mix.

The plants in spagnum got weak after time ,go not in winterrest ,not flowering match and finally you lost them.Some pings are grow well on this but this are only a very few.

Cheers Will

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Hey Will, I am not sure of temperatures inside my place, especially at that spot by the window. Let's hope it's not too much, but enough in either direction. :)

As for the Sphagnum, I also worried about this, which is why I filled the interior with the Ping soil shown in one of the photos (perlite, vermiculite, peat mix, if I remember well). Hopefully the Ping roots will reach this soil...

Thanks,

Fernando

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  • 1 month later...

Hello everyone,

I'm back with an update.

The wall is doing well: overall the plants are thriving and it's been very easy to maintain. I just fill the gutter with water before work trips and let the water wick itself up. Occasionally I've also been spraying the wall with some of my aquarium water, hoping this will act as a dilute fertilizer.

My biggest concerns with this project were:

1.) Lighting

2.) How well the sphagnum panels would wick water upI am happy to say that both these requisites seem to have been met! Lighting may still be a little on the low side, and I may increment this in the future. But the wicking effect has worked to perfection, leaving the bottom wetter and the top only humid, which would allow me to grow plants with different humidity needs.

However, not all plants have survived or thrived. A lot of Ping leaf cuttings never budded and just rotted off. Maybe winter leaves will work better. And at least one of the Ping species seems to be dying, maybe P.ionantha.

And now for the pics.

One thing I'm very happy with is to finally see regular moss sprouting here and there:

IMGP1089_1592x1504.jpgIMGP1088_2469x1864.jpg

Once these mosses cover the panels, I'm sure things will look a lot nicer.

My two Cephalotus are still alive and seem to be producing new leaves, but have not taken off yet:

IMGP1090_2244x2306.jpg

Same goes for D.schizandra, which is still small.

As for the Utrics, it doesn't seem like U.reniformis nor U.endresii have survived, but I am happy to say that the multiple plugs of U.asplundii seems to be doing well, even producing new leaves:

IMGP1084_3216x2412.jpg

Most surprisingly though, at least a few plugs of U.quelchii also seem to be producing new leaves, although all the original leaves have dried out. I had very little hope of keeping it alive at all, so I am pleasantly surprised:

IMGP1099_3216x2412.jpg

As for Pings, one of my P.ibarrae has already flowered a few times and is about to flower again:

IMGP1086_3216x2412.jpg

One of my P.moctezumae seems to be shrinking and is not doing too well, but another one seems to be fine and is about to flower for the 3rd-4th time:

IMGP1087_3216x2412.jpg

Then there's this weird plant.. From the flower, I'd guess this is some sort of hybrid, but what's really strange is that the leaves never open up fully:

IMGP1102_3216x2412.jpg

In this pic, you can see two P.X aphrodite(?) which have been flowering continuously. I'm not sure why though, but the flower scapes keep wilting in the middle, as you can see in the pic below. Maybe it's the proximity to the lights?

IMGP1091_3216x2412.jpg

And here are some overviews of the wall:

IMGP1105_3216x2412.jpg

IMGP1092_3216x2412.jpg

As you may have seen, there are numerous small plants spread all around the wall. So hopefully these will all mature in a few more months and fill out the wall.

Hope you all enjoyed it!

Fernando Rivadavia

Edited by Fernando Rivadavia
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Looks very nice Fernando,i think now begins the most dangerous time of year,November is the ultime test for your setup,plants must go in rest .The light is very good for so far i can see,strong enoufg.

You must give light everyday a bit shorter time,in november arround 9 or 10 hours light max,the temp must go lower to,also the water ,i not give any water in winter,this can be a problem for you because it s in the housse.

like i can see on the pics the plants still not begin to make there winterleafs.This rest is a must for keep the plants healty.

Meaby i sound critical but i tested some things by myself for looking more naturel and mostly everything going very good ,to good ,allways i begin to lost plants in november by this tests ,finally i now grow them back in apart pots.

I know it s match nicer grow plants in setups that looks very natural but if you get some disease like brown heart disease then all plants are infected and you have not any controle anymore.

Pings are not so easy like the most people thinking,today she looks very good ,tomorrow she can be dead.This can go very quickly and mostly it do.

I hope your setup works well,i am really intresting to see wats happened,

if all go well after winter whit this setup i go try this to in my greenhousse,so i looking forwards and suport all go well, :Laie_95:

Cheers will

By the way ,this mysterious plant whit the apart leaves looks very strange and nice,meaby intresting to short out wat are the parents?

Edited by will9
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Hello Will,

I'm also a bit worried about what to do during the winter and am not sure how much I should let it dry out - or not! Did you read the comments by Joseph Clemens at the beginning of this thread, where he says that he does not give his Mexican Pings any dormancy??

At this point, I am simply planning to reduce watering and leave the panel just humid over winter. As for temperature, maybe being closer to the window will make that area naturally cooler in the apartment. It does get cooler in the apartment, but I never need to turn on heating here during the winter. As for light, I'm thinking of keeping the LEDs at the same daylength they currently are on, or maybe reduce it a bit, and let the daylight coming through the window dictate any necessary natural rhythms.

We'll see what happens, it's all one big experiment! ;-)

Thanks,

Fernando Rivadavia

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Wow, really cool Fernando!

I think your mystery ping hybrid probably does have some P. agnata (or related species in it). Those flowers are very agnata-ish, as are the leaves...

Will, pings are so soft and can expire quickly, but they are generally one of the easier kinds of Carnivorous Plants available for people to grow. The easiest way to kill them in cultivation is to give them too much water, while not respecting their need for constant fresh and humid air. If we would just think about treating them like orchids, as opposed to normal CP culture with attention to acidic soils, folks would be making far fewer beginner mistakes with their Mexican Pinguicula.

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