Daydreamer's picture thread

D

Daydreamer

Seedling
Hello!
I would like to write a little about my experience picking up this hobby, what I've learned but it's mostly rambling. I've never really been into plants but somehow found them appealing to be around after receiving a bromeliad as a gift. I then started buying seeds for herbs/flowers and started growing them
Now I had a nepenthes as a child when I had my parents bought me one, but it lasted about 4 months before it perished. I spotted them walking around at the local garden center and purchased them on impulse.

It had no labels, except "Asian Pitcher Plant" on it, so it was a mystery on what it was.
1.jpg


I walked into a different store looking for house plants and saw these weird things I never knew existed (Drosera) which were placed right beside venus flytraps. I bought them on impulse :)
2.jpg
3.jpg


I thought they looked great at the time...boy was I in for a surprise. Anyway, this alien thing grew and I started reading up on it, snipped it off and stuck it in sphagnum, more to come.
4.jpg


I went on a business trip in Toronto where I scoped out a store and picked up two more flytraps (dentate/red dragon). It was an experience flying with them, as they were packed in a reptile box with breathing holes. TSA freaked out asking if it was a snake in there and I got a lot of looks carrying it around. Continued on next post, seems to have hit a limit or something

7.jpg
8.jpg
 
Unfortunately the tokaiensis(?) did not survive. It never recovered in the 3 months I left it alone. I did however find tiny plants growing underneath the mother plant, and I scraped them out using a toothpick and split them. I found maybe 7 different babies. I use this method to multiply my plants now. At this point my capensis at about 2 months started to look really good too.
21.jpg


The little babies
9.jpg



The red dragon colored really quick, perhaps within 2 weeks under lights, from that sad state in the original post. The dentate hardly grew, but it did multiply like crazy so there's a forest of little flytraps.
13.jpg

Remember that flower stalk I snipped off? It somehow bloomed... it was bizzare to me but I guess it shows how much energy is stored in it.
Now I did snip the stalk into multiple chunks, tried water propping but nothing happened in 2 months. I buried them sideways next to my dentates thinking it'll just rot away so I didn't think much of it. It did however grow little traps to my surprise. I will pull them out come spring as they are a different cultivar
12.jpg

The collection did not stop there, went to the garden center and stumbled upon some sarracenias. I tried to fight the urge to purchase them and successfully walked away from the store without getting them.
10.jpg


Needless to say I returned the following week and picked one up, the temptation was too strong!
11.jpg


Fast forward a month later, summer is in full spring and I have my grow lights on for 14 hours per day. They were making really nice tall traps! Except dentate which just kinda did it's own thing, it lagged behind considerably. A few ants/weevils made it's way in and fell prey to the flytraps, it was incredible how fast they were at closing.
18.jpg
19.jpg

It was also incredible how massive the traps were on the red dragon

23.jpg

The baby droseras also did well. I accidentally flicked a capensis flower stalk when pulling it out of the cabinet and needless to say, it sprouted everywhere
22.jpg


Sadly, summer was not long lasting and my traps started dropping their summer traps. Being a beginner, it's concerning to see but I trust the plant knows what it wants to do.
 
Last edited:
I got really good growth over the summer so no complaints, really amazing coloration and when I compare side by side vs when I first purchased the plant, I'm satisfied.
24.jpg


The one that impressed me the most is the purp, it grew faster than anything else, including my houseplants
15.jpg
16.jpg


I got really good growth over the summer so no complaints, really amazing coloration and when I compare side by side vs when I first purchased the plant, I'm satisfied.


I don't know if I made the right decision but I purchased more plants in October. A Drosera Regia, Sarracenia purp purp and B52.

30.jpg


26.jpg


I immediately put those in the same environment as my other dormant plants, I hope they do pull through.
To wrap it up, here's how the crispy tokaiensis babies turned out

28.jpg
25.jpg

I look forward to spring, and I hope the plants make it through windowsill dormancy fine.

Things I have learned in this short year of growing:
1. Peat moss + perlite is not my favorite combination, it dirties the tray and caused a pretty stinky algae situation. Would take recommendations/advice on this. Sphag + sand is easy to work with, sphag + perlite triggers some sort of sensory thing when I mix it and I dislike it, but it stays the cleanest.
2. There is no need to look too closely at the plants, trying to find imperfections. I know some people obsess over every leaf turning black.
3. I actually look forward to leaves turning black, as it seems when one dies, two leaves replaces it.
4. Sarracenias explode in growth when fertilized with osmocote in their pitchers, incredibly so.
5. Tokaiensis will crisp up for no reason it seems, similar to the mother plant and never recovers.
6. Drosera is really easy to water prop, even found one growing from the bottom of the pot where the water is

I'm still very much a beginner so my pots are all over the place and look ugly, still learning on what suits me and my plants :)
Any and all advice appreciated
 
Last edited:
Lloyd Gordon said:
Nice parents to buy you a nep!
My first tokaiensis I got seemed to be hiding. But I took the soil from where it should have been and it grew to a nice plant.
Click to expand...
My parents were huge plant nuts but I didn't appreciate plants back then
Tokaiensis is prolific for sure, mine aren't mature to seed yet but I get more than enough just dividing the little ones growing underneath
 
I wanted to delete this thread and repost but there isn't an option lol. I think it would be more suitable in the pictures board. Could a mod be able to move it there? EDIT: Thank you for moving the post!!

Anyway, it's been freezing (below -20C) out the past week and looks like it will continue for the next two weeks, windowsills are hovering at about 3C~7C. I'll be taking them off the windowsill when the "cold snap" ends

I did my repotting today and using sphagnum was not a good idea. It was a nightmare to pull off sarracenia roots, VFT more bearable but still took way too long. Sarracenia purp. venosa went from one growth point to 5 in one grow season.
PXL_20250208_211611862.jpg
PXL_20250208_212149315.jpg


The Flexx that was growing half an inch above the soil line did just fine, it had a root that went straight down. I think the sphagnum might have been packed too tightly, as all my plants did the same thing, growing upwards instead of spreading out. I've decided to go peat perlite for everything moving forward. I expected the bulbs to be larger as the traps were huge and red but they were tiny

PXL_20250208_222048633.jpg

The dentates were an absolute nightmare. They never stopped dividing after getting it from the store, hardly growing large. 19 divisions. Red dragons from the same store didn't have that kind of division, ended up with 6 but one was mushy and rotted out. I cut off the mushy part and planted it. Not sure if it'll work, time will tell.
Left dentate divisions, right potted red dragons
PXL_20250208_232210269.jpg
PXL_20250209_001905754.jpg



Left Flexx, right are the potted dentates
PXL_20250208_234928463.jpg
PXL_20250208_234545204.jpg
 
Last edited:
The cold snap is over and I'm taking this opportunity to take them out of dormancy!!
Also sowed the seeds from jordanferg (:
I potted up my existing plants in multiple pots because I have plans to build an outdoor bog, running out of space with all the other flower/herb seeds I'm starting, pardon the disgusting non-carnivorous plants :p

PXL_20250220_003843180.jpg
PXL_20250220_003836480.jpg
 
Daydreamer said:
The cold snap is over and I'm taking this opportunity to take them out of dormancy!!
Also sowed the seeds from jordanferg (:
I potted up my existing plants in multiple pots because I have plans to build an outdoor bog, running out of space with all the other flower/herb seeds I'm starting, pardon the disgusting non-carnivorous plants :p

View attachment 32018View attachment 32019
Click to expand...
That's a perfect place for a mint (if that's what it is). Behind glass where it can't take over the world. Great cabinet setup btw.
 
I think I'm in trouble lol. I've never used a peat perlite mix until this year. I bought peat from my local garden centre and repotted everything + started the sarr seeds in them. Seeds were stratified in chopped sphag and dumped on top. Looking at the algae growth I think there's a considerable amount of nutrients in it? I did not rinse and the bag said it's just peat.. I did not see pellets of fertilizer

PXL_20250225_150721460.jpg
 
Did you you soak the peat in boiling water ? That helps kill any thing in peat before you plant. I get algae in peat too never seemed to hurt too much.
 
bernnie said:
Did you you soak the peat in boiling water ? That helps kill any thing in peat before you plant. I get algae in peat too never seemed to hurt too much.
Click to expand...
No I did not, just hydrated then potted
Lloyd Gordon said:
Sometimes you just get algae. I don't think it should bother the sarr. seeds.
Click to expand...
Yeah I don't think the algae will hurt but more concerned about the reason why they're appearing, which ime is quite a lot of nutrients in the soil?

It was pretty low grade peat I think, had a lot of sticks/chunks. Hopefully it balances out with sarr seedlings preferring fertilized soil ..
 
If it had fertilizer add to it,most likely it will say it on the package. peat moss will have sticks and chunks and some nutrients in it naturally enough for algae to grow but ok for the plants.
 
Last edited:
Peat always has some sticks in it. Algae needs almost 0 nutrients to grow. It will grow in rainwater which shows 0 TDS. I don't do anything to peat. Algae will grow for various reasons on peat and LFS.
 
bernnie said:
If it had fertilizer add it most likely say it on the package. peat moss will have sticks and chunks and some nutrients in it naturally enough for algae to grow but ok for the plants.
Click to expand...
Lloyd Gordon said:
Peat always has some sticks in it. Algae needs almost 0 nutrients to grow. It will grow in rainwater which shows 0 TDS. I don't do anything to peat. Algae will grow for various reasons on peat and LFS.
Click to expand...
That's reassuring to know about the sticks and nutrients!! Only used sphag thus far so it's a learning curve for me (:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top