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Post by bonfield on Jan 28, 2020 14:04:09 GMT -5
The purple tinge on those leaves is gorgeous, way to go on scoring that one!
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kell27
Junior Member
Posts: 82
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Post by kell27 on Feb 24, 2020 21:09:05 GMT -5
Lots of plants have left my collection this week in preparation for moving, I'm extremely happy with what I have left at the moment. This cyclosecta is beautiful!!! It grew so much in the last month or so, I didn't expect it to be so tall suddenly. I can't wait to bring my plants home finally!  |
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Post by dvg on Feb 25, 2020 8:34:13 GMT -5
That's impressive growth with cyclosecta, i've had it locked in its winter rosette for what seemed like ages before, and when it finally emerged to active growth again, it wasn't the strongest grower for me. But your cyclosecta has wasted little time in stacking up layers of pretty purple tinged leaves, and has elevated itself from a short stack to a full stack, in no time.  Nice work there! dvg |
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kell27
Junior Member
Posts: 82
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Post by kell27 on Feb 28, 2020 23:07:37 GMT -5
Dozens of plants have left for new homes this week, my plant shelves feel a little more empty but I'm very happy with what I have left. I decided to take all the humidity domes off for a few minutes tonight to enjoy the beauty of everything as it is, before my largest nepenthes are made into cuttings tomorrow afternoon. As much as it pains me to think about cutting them up, I am looking forward to restarting my 2 largest from cuttings & passing some on to new homes!  |
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kell27
Junior Member
Posts: 82
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Post by kell27 on Jul 18, 2020 14:47:36 GMT -5
I got an update on my collection this week, everything looks great side from 2 that decided to die on me. Sadly one was the cyclosecta above, but I see a baby is still in the pot so maybe it got stressed and regrew itself from the root system? The other was my D. andromeda. I don't know what it is about that particular plant but I believe that was my third try! They seem happy and grow for a couple months but seem to die out of nowhere. I don't think the 3 sisters like me as last year my adelae eventually died for no real reason after having it for 2 years. Oh well, at least they're obtainable enough to try again in the future. I'm hoping to have my plants with me again by this fall, I'm just waiting for the GTA to go into stage 3. I'll post some pictures as I gather them again, I was sent at least a dozen!
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kell27
Junior Member
Posts: 82
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Post by kell27 on Jul 21, 2020 21:54:29 GMT -5
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kell27
Junior Member
Posts: 82
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Post by kell27 on Feb 28, 2021 12:01:39 GMT -5
I wish I had some good news, but unfortunately it appears that my collection has finally reached the point of no return after over a year without pruning and repotting... I still haven't been able to go back and retrieve my collection due to lockdowns, they've been watered and been getting light but I suspect everything got too root bound and are now dying of strangulation. I've lost most of my sundews, what's left is a jumbled mess that stands no chance of being repotted. I lost about half of the pings while some are hanging on with the cephalotus, my heli is gone, the nepenthes fared fairly well aside from a couple of deaths. Roughly 17 plants are dead, 5 probably won't make it & 10 are just hanging on. It's very painful to lose all of this work but I knew this would happen at some point soon. I'm glad I took as many pictures as I did, I'll still get to enjoy them through that. I hope some time this year I'll be able to go back and recover what I can so I can rebuild my collection, although much smaller and specific than before. Natural selection finished the last of my downsizing for me which should save me some work when it's eventually time to bring everything home. I'll have to decide if I want to regrow my sundews but I think I may focus on some more specific things. I'm not going anywhere! I'm still nursing my 2 dream plants through winter on a windowsill, they're doing alright. I won't be able to supply any more sundews to the plant shop I was working with in Toronto sadly, if anyone was waiting for more to be sent to them then I'll let you know if I decide to grow them again in the future.
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kell27
Junior Member
Posts: 82
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Post by kell27 on Feb 28, 2021 12:07:42 GMT -5
Oh I should add, while going through some trays last night over facebook (We've managed to sort through I think 3 of 6 trays, 1 of which will be entirely tossed) I did get a bit of a surprise... one of the "Mystery mix" nepenthes I got from Bonfield turned out to have 2 entirely different plants in the same pot & I had no idea until this picture was taken last night! The funny thing, is I've been hunting for a nice dark nepenthes like this for over a year.. and now one suddenly shows up through all of the mess, literally! It's beautiful, I can't wait to get my hands on it so it can grow even better.  |
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kell27
Junior Member
Posts: 82
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Post by kell27 on Jan 9, 2022 14:39:32 GMT -5
I don't have much to post lately as I still don't have my plant collection back in my possession, but after hitting almost 2 years of being away from my collection I'm surprised at the resilience that these plants can have! I was sent this picture of one of my trays last night, I'm shocked how packed these cephalotus have gotten. Excuse any of the dead stuff around them, it's tough teaching someone how to prune plants over the phone but he's learning.  I went through a period of grief a few months ago when the largest of the die off in my collection happened, (roughly 40% at once) but I've now hit a point where the strongest have survived & for the most part all of my favourites are holding on. I'm looking forward to rebuilding my collection slowly this spring now that I've spent a month rebuilding a plant set up. The passion is still here, I'm looking forward to getting at least one box of survivors once spring comes! I've spent this week slowly cataloging them all so that if I have the opportunity to go to them first I can get the most important & desperate ones if I can't bring them all back with me at once. Everything is replaceable so I won't spend months rehabbing anything that's too far gone but for the most part things are looking alright! The only plant I for sure what to replace at the moment is that gorgeous P. cyclosecta that I posted previously. If anyone here will have some for sale in the spring, please PM me!!! It's the only plant so far that I'm a little heartbroken over losing, it was such a gorgeous ping.  |
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Post by bonfield on Jan 10, 2022 0:35:00 GMT -5
Some losses are to be expected in every collection, even if someone is able to directly care for them. As far as remote supervision is concerned, you and your collection's caretaker seem to be doing pretty well, especially with most of the Pings. The older, more decayed Ceph pitchers can be removed with a toothpick/tweezers, and it will clear way for lots of new growth. As for whatever else was lost, I doubt you'll have too much trouble finding a source for replacements, especially here.
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kell27
Junior Member
Posts: 82
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Post by kell27 on Jan 23, 2022 11:59:15 GMT -5
Some losses are to be expected in every collection, even if someone is able to directly care for them. As far as remote supervision is concerned, you and your collection's caretaker seem to be doing pretty well, especially with most of the Pings. The older, more decayed Ceph pitchers can be removed with a toothpick/tweezers, and it will clear way for lots of new growth. As for whatever else was lost, I doubt you'll have too much trouble finding a source for replacements, especially here. He's slowly learning how to prune off the dead growth which is helping. We've started video calling to see what to do about the ones that need some extra help, he managed to repot a couple of plants for the first time!! The cephs are gonna be a major project I think but at least they're alive. Those will probably be one of the first plants I have sent in the spring. I've gone from 42 varieties to roughly 10 at this point. Luckily nothing with a lot of value was lost, all of them are replaceable if I choose to do so in the future. I did need to reduce my collection size due to space constraints so over the next year I'll have to see what's left & decide what I have space for once everything is moved over. |
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kell27
Junior Member
Posts: 82
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Post by kell27 on May 22, 2022 11:33:37 GMT -5
This week I was finally able to go back to my collection for the first time in over 2 years! Everything that survived is actually doing well at this point. I brought 1 of my 6 trays home with the most critical/expensive plants & the new growth seems to be doing alright so far. If anyone has some suggestions for rehabbing cephalotus plants please let me know as they seem to be the worse off ones at the moment. I managed to clear off all the dead growth this morning but there wasn't a lot left under it. Luckily they do have some new growth on them which I'm hoping will take over now that some better air and light can get in! I'm thinking the nepenthes will all need to be re-grown from cuttings once they acclimate to our apartment since they have a lot of bonsai like shapes going on currently. If anyone knows of any online websites that sell pre-made carnivorous plant mixes please let me know as I forgot to bring some back with them   |
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Post by bonfield on Jun 3, 2022 19:35:02 GMT -5
The ventricosa x hamata is looking great Kell!
Those Cephs are definitely ready to be split up, I'd recommend carefully pulling off the larger, fully developed pitchers as you go, not only will it make it easier to position/plant the divisions, they usually start dying off within days of repotting regardless, so now you can use the healthy ones for vegetative propagation.
I think that pre-made CP mixes are a bit of a rip-off, for $50-60 you could probably get a bulk bag of perlite and a large bale of peat, you and some friends could split on it, mix it all up, and each have enough to last months, if not longer.
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Post by dvg on Jun 4, 2022 12:49:44 GMT -5
Agreed with bonfield , your N. ventricosa x hamata pitcher is looking awesome kell27 ...it really strikes a handsome pose!  dvg |
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kell27
Junior Member
Posts: 82
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Post by kell27 on Jun 23, 2022 20:51:47 GMT -5
The ventricosa x hamata is looking great Kell! Those Cephs are definitely ready to be split up, I'd recommend carefully pulling off the larger, fully developed pitchers as you go, not only will it make it easier to position/plant the divisions, they usually start dying off within days of repotting regardless, so now you can use the healthy ones for vegetative propagation. I think that pre-made CP mixes are a bit of a rip-off, for $50-60 you could probably get a bulk bag of perlite and a large bale of peat, you and some friends could split on it, mix it all up, and each have enough to last months, if not longer. Thanks! I don't know anyone who grows these in my area at the moment so I don't think I could split it with anyone, I may just have someone sent me a gallon ziplock of the mix I already have in a 5 gallon bucket or I'll do that when I can next get some more plants. I had no idea about the ceph's! I may just start them over from divisions at this point, that's pretty much my plan with everything. Also, are pings easy to identify visually? Almost all of my plant tags have faded & I'm having trouble telling which ones are which at the moment although I do have some idea of what I have currently. Except for my N. Miranda, the pitchers on that on are about 13 inches currently so I'll probably just repot that one! The N. BM x amp (I think) is about 5ft tall currently with upper pitchers, if I take cuttings of those will the new plant grow upper pitchers or does the plant somehow decide the type of pitcher based on how tall the vine currently is? |
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