The Garden of Eden

[Eden Marel]

I know they aren't in a terrarium or whatever this forum is for, but use your all powerful imagination and then they shall. Well since other people are doing it, I wanted to have a thread on my carnivorous plants too, though I doubt I'd get any responses since I hardly get any in my tank posts...oh wells I talk to myself allllllll the time anyways so this wouldn't be any different.

Anyhoo, here are pictures of my current collections... ohhh and I will be getting cacti and succulent plants too soon cuz they are just sooooooooooooooo freaking cute!!! They will be posted here too, later.


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SUNDEW:
Drosera adele






Drosera capensis





VENUS FLY TRAP:
Dionaea muscipula




Do you see what I see?! Yes!! It's like buying one plant and getting a baby sundew for free!! lol





BUTTERWORT:
Pinguicula spp.



PURPLE PITCHER & YELLOW TRUMPET:
Sarracenia purpurea & Sarracenia flava



MISC PICS:

[Lycosa]

Awesome plants Eden! I have a few CP's myself. I've been keeping them for years, just can't get enough of them. Everytime I see one for sale, I end up buying it but not having much luck yet. Seems most stores like to sell them right about the time they should go dormant so people unknowingly kill the plants so they can buy another one next year.

Nice collection you have going

[Eden Marel]

Originally Posted by Lycosa

Awesome plants Eden! I have a few CP's myself. I've been keeping them for years, just can't get enough of them. Everytime I see one for sale, I end up buying it but not having much luck yet. Seems most stores like to sell them right about the time they should go dormant so people unknowingly kill the plants so they can buy another one next year.

Nice collection you have going

Thanks! Have you checked your local garden center/nursery? I just two from there today, the pot of VFT with a lot of traps with two baby sundews in the same pot (I wonder how they got there, but good deal!) and the Cape Sundew at my local garden center.



I am in love with the local nurseries now, I used to go plant shopping at Walmart, Home Depot, and Lowes... but today I went to look for ladybugs and looked around at what they had to offer and omg... I am not going to big box stores again for plant stuff unless it is cheaper. They had sooo many cool things, and god if I had gone their before I ordered perlite off of ebay I would have paid just as much or save a little bit and had it the same day lol

[Chrisinator]

CP<3

I love Carnivorous plants!

[Digsy]

Great looking plants! How hard are these to keep? I had a VFT as a kid but it didn't last long because I didn't know the first thing about taking care of it.

[jmowbray]

Originally Posted by Digsy

Great looking plants! How hard are these to keep? I had a VFT as a kid but it didn't last long because I didn't know the first thing about taking care of it.

Digsy you hit the nail on the head. There real easy to care for if you know what your doing. :P

Eden the VFT's look nice but what's wrong with the dews? I would like to show you my plants, but I don't want to start another thread. Is it alright if I post a link on here to show you?

[Eden Marel]

Well I've only had a VFT prior to what I have now, so I only have previous experience with VFT, which the first one I had I killed because I was lazy and didn't want to make a special trip for distilled water so I gave it a helping of dechlorinated water and it died the next day TT___TT.

The dews... well, I'm not sure they kinda look dry don't they? Well I think it might have to do with where I live. It is extremely dry in Colorado, they looked waaaay better when they were in their boxes cuz the humidity, but when I took them out they started drying up and not so dewy.

Feel free to show yours, I am interested in seeing everyone's plants!!



Here are some pics of the succulents I bought today, I am going to buy a cactus pot and repot them later.


Ohhhh... pretty colors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!





Look at all these cute little munchkins! ^___^







Annnddd... here's my balcony garden. Got some aphids on some of the plants, so I bought a bag of ladybugs..... 2000 of them.

[speedie408]

I was totally unaware ladybugs could be purchased for aphid control. Nice. Where did you get the LB's? Do they come in the larval stage? I'd suspect that the bugs would just up n fly away once they get released.

CP's are always cool.

[legomaniac89]

Nice looking stuff Eden. Looks like that Pleiospilos nelii (the Split-Rock Plant) has a flower bud on it. Give it good light and you'll see this within a couple days

[Eden Marel]

Originally Posted by speedie408

I was totally unaware ladybugs could be purchased for aphid control. Nice. Where did you get the LB's? Do they come in the larval stage? I'd suspect that the bugs would just up n fly away once they get released.

CP's are always cool.

I bought them at my local garden center/nursey. They are usually in a fridge. I think the ones you buy are only adult form, but if you have enough food in your garden for the LB they will stick around and may lay some eggs. Spary some water on the plants before you release, because these LB are very very very very very very very thirsty! So they will stay and drink and might take better notice in your aphids.

Originally Posted by legomaniac89

Nice looking stuff Eden. Looks like that Pleiospilos nelii (the Split-Rock Plant) has a flower bud on it. Give it good light and you'll see this within a couple days

Cool! I will look forward to seeing the bud bloom! I'll stick them outside on the little table, but I hope they don't burn cuz the sun here is hot and somewhat harsh. It makes some of my other container plants kinda wilty on the top of the plant.

What kind of soil are you using? I bought some Miracle Gro Cactus soil, but I'm gonna mix it was some coconut coir and lots of perlite. I think I will combine them in one big cactus pot... but I have to research on that too cuz I came across some thread of a person who just mixed all their succulents in one pot and they all had different needs, yikes!

Edit - scratch the miraclegro... after reading online it seems I shouldnt use it and that I should go with a 50/50 coir to perlite mix.

[legomaniac89]

For most of my succulents, I use a 25% potting soil, 25% vermiculite, and 50% perlite mix, sometimes with a handful of pea gravel thrown in too. But for my mesembs (Pleiospilos, Lithops, etc.), I use a 90% pea gravel/perlite and 5% vermiculite, and 5% spaghnum peat. I've rotted several mesembs already because I used too much peat in the soil mix and they stayed wet for too long.

And yeah, the Miracle-Gro stuff or any other pre-mixed "Cactus Soil" blend won't work very well. They're mostly sand and the water tends to just drain right through without giving the succ a chance to use it.

[Eden Marel]

I ended up returning the MiracleGro soil.. well they make a lot of soil and it seems they all look the same. I heard their orchid mix was not so good either; very soily and not chunky like other brand, so I bought Better Gro PHal mix for my once alive orchid xD

Anyways, I repotted the succulents together and the mimics stayed separate (except I combined the Anacampseros together. I didn't want to buy $20 worth of clay cactus pots cuz I'm not rich. I hope they will do okay in my 50/50 coconut coir to perlitewith a little bit of added sand and Schultz Cacti and Succulent Fertilizer. Some of them were pretty root bound so it was hard to loosen off their soil and roots off.

[jmowbray]

Originally Posted by Eden Marel

The dews... well, I'm not sure they kinda look dry don't they? Well I think it might have to do with where I live. It is extremely dry in Colorado, they looked waaaay better when they were in their boxes cuz the humidity, but when I took them out they started drying up and not so dewy.

The VFT's and the pitcher plants should do fine without the humidity. The dews however need high amount of humidity with a lot of light to get dew and for the tips to stay red. I always wanted to grow mine outside but my weather conditions are the same as yours. So I put them in a nice fish bowl with plastic wrap over the hole to keep the moisture in. If I had people coming over I would leave them on the counter and just take the plastic off to really show the plants off. Oh and they were in a bright location, NOT sunny. Make sure that they are in indirect sun. If they are in the direct sun beams it will fry the dew and the leaves of the plants and before you know it the temp in the fish bowl with be past 100F and the plant is lying on the ground wilted.

You can also grow them under 4 foot cool white shop lights. That's what I do for my other plants that don't require a dormancy period in the winter.

[legomaniac89]

Originally Posted by jmowbray

The VFT's and the pitcher plants should do fine without the humidity. The dews however need high amount of humidity with a lot of light to get dew and for the tips to stay red. I always wanted to grow mine outside but my weather conditions are the same as yours. So I put them in a nice fish bowl with plastic wrap over the hole to keep the moisture in. If I had people coming over I would leave them on the counter and just take the plastic off to really show the plants off. Oh and they were in a bright location, NOT sunny. Make sure that they are in indirect sun. If they are in the direct sun beams it will fry the dew and the leaves of the plants and before you know it the temp in the fish bowl with be past 100F and the plant is lying on the ground wilted.

You can also grow them under 4 foot cool white shop lights. That's what I do for my other plants that don't require a dormancy period in the winter.

That's true for D. adelae, but most of the other Drosera can take full sun just fine. My D. capensis and D. spatulata are in full sun alongside my Sarracenia and VFTs, an they love it. As you said though, D. adelae prefers filtered light and higher humidity than most others.

Hey Eden, you may want to be careful having those Lithops and Pleiospilos in that soil mix. They could be overwatered very easily with that much peat in the soil.

[Eden Marel]

Well I live in a APT and moving in 7 months, don't want to buy lights. I put them on a south facing window, and there is a a big tree right in front of the window so they get very filtered light. I bought them inside and put them in a kritter keeper.

Ok I will be careful, but it isn't peat. It's a mix of 50/50 coconut coir to perlite with a handful of desert sand. It was kinda fun, but very messy to mix it since I only have some small tupperwares to do it in. The coconut coir went from a brick size block to a big fluffy poof! xD

The only peat in it is the stuff that was stuck around their roots that I couldn't get off. I'll give them less water and not as often just in case though!