My Heliamphora collection

[marcello catalano]

Wow, excellent plants and very neat set-up!!!!! You must have a quite favourable climate, with cool nights, at least for most of the year... I stopped growing helis, as I had great plants for 8-9 months of the year, becoming greenish and with brown edges during the remaining 3 months... I couldn't accept to wait months every year to get perfect plants and then see them becoming rubbish again...

[Kiwi Earl]

Hey, François! Long time no type. How's it going buddy?

Man! Your Heliamphora look tremendous - thanks so much for posting.

The Heliamphora sp. Akopan are gorgeous.

[Carlos Rohrbacher]

Ooooooh!

You have a 'tepui' in your home!

Thanks for sharing François.

[Vince81]

Oh, fantastic plants François !

Thank you for sharing such beautiful pictures.

[linuxman]

What a wonderful inspiration! I've only started growing helis this years and it would be fantastic to get anywhere near your collection.

I see you have many plants in flower. Do you do a pollen exchange? This may be of more interest than just me

[Sockhom]

Hello all,

I'm glad you like the plants. Heliamphora tends to be one of my very favourite genus (along with Nepenthes and Drosera).

Some answers:

dchasselblad74: I definitely think the plants get redder because of the cold. My conditions in summer are exactly the same but the temperatures are warmer. The plants get "sun" bathed 13 hours a day all year long.

Utricseb: In winter the temperatures are more or less 10°C at night (sometimes as low as 6 °C) and about 18 °C during the day.

GregAllan: No cooling system. The Heliamphora tanks are in my garage where there is no isolation. The place is thus very influenced by the outside temperatures - I live in northern France where we regularly have frost in winter (and sometime, it gets as low as minus 10 or minus 15°C. But only for a short time). Summer can sometimes be quite hot but but that's a quite seldom occurence. I live in a really temperate place, actually.

Linuxman: This pollen exchange is a good idea. I did not have the time to collect any pollen last time, althought 6 or 7 species were flowering. It's a waste indeed. Unfortunately, I had to travel and when I went back, it was a bit too late. I will try to get more organized next time and will propose pollen here.

(Kiwi)Earl: Hi man!

I'm happy to be there and to "see" you again". I know you're going to delight us with gorgeous Sarracenia this winter. I'm doing fine , thanks. This was quite busy recently because I was working on several Nepenthes papers (and still am) but I can' complain.

Now on my spare time, I really enjoy my plants and my pets: our home are filled with insects an all now: we're taking care with my three kids ,of praying mantises, moths, crickets, grasshoppers, axolotl, stick insects and all.... I should share some pics soon ;-)

Cheers,

François.

Edited October 9, 2010 by Sockhom

[Penke]

Dear Sockhom

Great collection, Im an Heliamphora lover too, Ive got heterodoxa, tatei, minor, minor x heterodoxa, ionasii x heterodoxa, nutans and ciliata.

Im trying to grow them with LED technology, soon I`ll post my results

Are you going to split up those huge plants and sell some???? They barely fit on the pod!!!!

I will be glad of buying or swapping some of them!!!!!!!

cheers