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Bee girl

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I am new here and I am a new carnivorous plant owner!!

I own a Nepenthes alata baby, that is growing rather quickly!

I also own two orchids and if the nepenthes ends up growing happy then I may get some new ones!!!

I worked at Kew Gardens as an intern for some work experience and worked with the Nepenthes on a few occasions it was fun :).

I study horticulture and have a massive interest in botanical and tropical specimens!!

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Welcome to the forums Bee Girl, glad you could join us. Your work at Kew and horticultural studies sound very interesting and a great background for a budding CP grower.

Edited by Gaz
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Thanks guys ^^. I did like working at Kew and i tell you what the pitchers where huuuuge!! :)

I did quiet like the collection of other CP's as well :)

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Welcome Bee girl!

A question, how sure are you, your Nepenthes is really an alata? Did you buy it in a garden center? The garden center alatas are practically always xventratas.

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Welcome to the forum! :sun_bespectacled:

I second Amar, I bought a pair of supposed alata's from my local GC a month or three back, they both turned out to be x ventrata (not that I'm complaining, they both pitcher fantastically)

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Welcome Bee girl!

A question, how sure are you, your Nepenthes is really an alata? Did you buy it in a garden center? The garden center alatas are practically always xventratas.

I am not sure at all, lol, it does look like the ones i worked with but you could be right, I got bought it as a present and the label with it says alata. *shrugs* either way I'm happy to have one :)

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...or like the non-committal garden centre plants we have on this side of the 'Pond': "Nepenthes species" or "Asian Pitcher Plant"...

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...or like the non-committal garden centre plants we have on this side of the 'Pond': "Nepenthes species" or "Asian Pitcher Plant"...

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I remember when I was younger a lot of houseplants in the garden centre were labelled as 'Foliage Plant'. I remember my sister-in-law saying "It's lovely, apparently it's a foilage plant." Which has always tickled my fancy.

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...or like the non-committal garden centre plants we have on this side of the 'Pond': "Nepenthes species" or "Asian Pitcher Plant"...

gee, I bet that makes identifying things fun...
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gee, I bet that makes identifying things fun...

It was precisely because of these so-called ID's that led me to bookstores (Savage Garden &CP's of the World), which led me to the Internet, which led me to the discussion forums... which I didn't even know existed.

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It was precisely because of these so-called ID's that led me to bookstores (Savage Garden &CP's of the World), which led me to the Internet, which led me to the discussion forums... which I didn't even know existed.

The savage garden is a really handy book to have on hand. Isn't there an updated version out later this year? I suppose there's probably discussion forums for pretty much anything these days. I think this [the forum] is actually a very good way of sharing knowledge between growers world wide, I've certainly learned an awful lot just flicking back through old threads, let alone being able to ask people who've been growing these plants longer than I've walked the earth for help :l_sunny:
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Yes Peter's book is one of the best ones out there, along with Adrian Slack's Insect Eaters and another brilliant one is Barry Rice's Growing Carnivorous Plants with Barry's trademark sense of humour. Barry's website is one of the best resources on the net for growing information and he's a great man. I would say though that Carnivorous plants of the world is regarded as containing some very dodgy advice. I don't know in what way as I've never read it. I have a PDF of it I downloaded but because I heard of it's reputation somewhere (possibly on here) I've never bothered doing anything other than look at the pictures. Correct me if I'm wrong folks as I could well be confusing it with another book. Also, did you know that you can get Darwin's book for free on Kindle?

Sorry Jim I didn't realise it was you that wrote the post I'm replying too and therefore aimed it at a newcomer. Have you heard anything about CP's of the world?

Edited by Richard Bunn
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On the subject of books, my first book was the RHS Wisley handbook but even that has some dodgy advice, it was the reason I failed with Dionaea when I tried them again following it's advice, it says a winter minimum of 10c (50f) which is too warm. I then got Marcel Lecoufle's book but he's more of an orchid guy and it's not a great book. It was Slack and D'Amato that were the best sources for me but I got those after I started using Barry's site when I got back into the hobby again back in 2009 (I think).

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Ah here it is Jim. I copied this from a page on Barry's site (http://www.sarracenia.com/faq/faq6010b.html) . It's a quote from CP's of the world that obviously makes them a bit of dubious pair. (knowing my luck you're gonna say you're friends with them now aren't you)

"....it is also obvious to anyone acquainted with native populations of carnivorous plants, that the plant stands often become overcrowded, resulting in substantial mortality. Judicious field collection of plants can be helpful, particularly in overcrowded stands. Wise collecting benefits the total plant population by distributing plants to other suitable habitats."

Edited by Richard Bunn
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Yes, July 3rd Peter's new edition will become available.

ah, now I know what to ask for for my birthday :mail1:

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